


Better Days | MCU IronDad AU

by DemigodOfAgni



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Post Spider-Man: Homecoming - Fandom, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Artificial superpowers, BAMF Peter Parker, BAMF Tony Stark, Biology, Body Horror, Comfort/Angst, Eventual Happy Ending, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Human Experimentation, I actually geek a lot about science in this, IT GOES FROM 1 TO 100 REAL QUICK, Insane Norman Osborn, Irondad, Kidnapped Peter Parker, Kidnapping, Lots of it, Maybe - Freeform, Missing Limbs, Mutants, Norman Osborn Being a Jerk, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker Whump, Protective Tony Stark, Search and Rescue, Superpowers, Supportive May Parker (Spider-Man), THE TAGS ARE SPOILERY GUYS, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Whump, also there's blood, did i tell you my dreams influenced this story, i think i got the mcu timeline correct, my boys - Freeform, secret experiments, spiderson, there's also tonnes of marvel comics references, tryna finish this before christmas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:02:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 59,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27874274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DemigodOfAgni/pseuds/DemigodOfAgni
Summary: Tony wondered if he would skirt around the topic if Peter became the subject of it.It started off with a few missing children. Just a few. Five. Maybe six. Peter Parker lost track of the numbers, but with every child he found, the more worried he grew. Tony Stark shared the unsettling news, and they kept close together, trying to fit one irregular piece into the rest of the puzzle.But that was before chaos erupted beneath their feet.I'm poor as hell, my wallets are empty, therefore I have no ownership of the characters who belong to Marvel Studios; I only own the plot.
Relationships: May Parker (Spider-Man) & Peter Parker, Ned Leeds & Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 88
Kudos: 137





	1. In a Dull and Cold Alley

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh no, another MCU Spider-Man story.  
> Oh yes, it's going to updated fairly quickly?  
> Oh yesn't, this whole mess isn't my story. I mean, I made it, sure, but not in the right state of mind? Just read the end notes after reading this chapter, alright?
> 
> By the way, the story quickly descends to hell in less than five minutes.  
> You have been warned.

* * *

— _CHAPTER ONE_ —  
 _IN A DULL AND COLD ALLEY_

'Okay, so the presentation was pretty standard, I guess? Like, all Mr. Osborn talked about was this new revolutionary technique or material or— or something (sorry, I wasn't paying attention) that could help soldiers in wars and stuff.'

Peter twisted in midair, snapping out his wrists and firing streams of webbing at the thugs running below him. One of them collapsed to the ground under the force of the sticky netting, while the other was flung to the side and plastered against the wall. The purse they stole clattered to the ground and sagged with a resigned sigh.

Spider-Man flipped down from his perch on the wall, landing lightly on his feet to scoop up the purse. He glared at the thugs, the lenses of his mask contracting, as he hissed to them, 'Dunno why you fellas went after that poor woman – for what? Cash? Couldn't you just use the ATM and make a withdrawal?'

The thugs had the audacity to look guilty, and Peter waved to them, letting them stay webbed-up in that small alley until the authorities arrived to pick them up. Shooting a web, Peter flung himself up into their air, purse in hand.

'So, where was I?' Peter started again, swinging back towards the area he had left the woman to whom the purse belonged to. The evening air was chilly and still, and Peter could almost feel his joints pop and crackle with every move he made. 'Oh – right, the tech. Yeah, so Mr. Osborn showed us some specs of his— oh, wait. Should I even be telling you this? Don't businesses have a rule or something that prevents their super-secret projects from being leaked to prevent their ideas from being stolen?'

Silence on the other side of the comms. Peter had only dropped in front of the woman and given her purse back to her when Mr. Stark said, ' _Hmm, I don't know, it wouldn't hurt to know_ one _thing now, would it?_ '

As the woman thanked Spider-Man and ran off, Peter turned and hissed into the comms, 'You are a bad CEO.'

Mr. Stark laughed dryly on the other side of the line. ' _Oh, sure_ ,' he drawled, ' _me wanting to know what some fellow businessmen like myself are creating._ '

'Mr. Stark.'

' _Yeah, fine_.' Mr. Stark grunted, then said, ' _You know, I've never been a fan of Osborn's things. He's a genius, I admit that, but his methods are...questionable. Oscorp's notorious for stealing other corporations' ideas, changing their names and slapping a label on them and declaring them theirs. Then they go ahead to sue the other manufacturers. Osborn just plays dirty; it's a wonder how other biomedical and technology companies have managed to survive this long before being sued to oblivion_.'

Peter snorted. 'You really hate him that much?'

' _He tried to rip off Stark Industries' Nitramene, kid. I have good reason_.'

Humming, Peter flung out a web and cruised through the air in a long sweeping arc, his feet grazing the tops of streetlamps. He swung through the city leisurely, slowly; evenings patrols were sluggish during winters, especially in the weeks leading up to Christmas, but it didn't bother Peter in the slightest. Sure, while crime rates seemed to go down during this time (signalling some kind of heist in the making, probably), there were other things that could occupy Spider-Man's time. Mainly the kids who went out to buy warm treats; catching them by surprise was always a delight.

'I think he's okay,' Peter said after a moment. 'He _is_ a genius after all.'

Mr. Stark made a sound like someone had speared him through the chest. ' _That's it. Your internship is over_ – _get outta here, you traitor_.'

Laughing at Mr. Stark's attempt of anger and betrayal, Peter let go of his web mid-swing and landed on the roof of a building, balancing on the corner as he righted himself. Frost crunched under the soles of his shoes. 'Also, Mr. Stark?' Peter called.

' _Hmm?_ '

'Our school's going to have vaccinations soon,' Peter said after a moment. 'You know. Menenj—meninjock? Meningococcal, I think. Yeah, the vaccine for that one.' After Mr. Stark's affirmative hum, Peter asked, 'Should I even have it? I mean, ever since the spider bite, I haven't been getting ill or anything.'

Mr. Stark was quick to answer. ' _Captain America said the same thing_ ,' he said, his voice a little stiff. ' _He had the Serum, and suddenly he's immune to every known virus and bacterium on the planet. Tell you what, just go get the vaccine; it'll be revision for your cells, anyway. That is the whole point of it, right?_ '

Peter scanned the streets below him, the heads-up display of his mask locking on the different people that strolled along before moving on. As much as Peter accepted the slowness of crime winter brought, he was sure he wouldn't get used to the conversations he and Mr. Stark shared. Before, Peter had thought their relationship was strictly professional – one superhero to another. But after the whole debacle with the Vulture, the conversations were drawn out, longer, they covered more mundane topics beside web shooter malfunctions and the physics behind repulsor tech.

(Not that Peter minded, oh, no. He absolutely craved casual and mundane conversation).

'Yeah, makes sense,' Peter said after a moment, scuffing his toe against the ground. He strolled along the edge of the building's roof, trying to find the perfect angle to fling himself off of it. 'I'll just have to get someone to sign the permission slip.'

As Mr. Stark offered to sign said permission slip, a chill ran up Peter's spine, turning the warm feeling in his chest to stone. He froze, then turned around to look behind him. Nothing but the chilly air and the city of New York behind him. But was that it?

' _Kid?'_ came Mr. Stark's voice from the comms, soft and quiet. ' _Kid, you alright?'_

'Yeah, I'm fine,' Peter said, still not moving. He flicked his eyes around, only to see nothing out of the ordinary, and yet the chill that had settled on his spine had not backed away. 'I think my Spider-Sense is tingling.'

' _I_ — _wait, what?'_ snorted Mr. Stark. ' _Did you seriously just call your danger sense your_ —'

Peter tuned him out, just for a moment, in favour of the tingles that shivered down his back. It couldn't be the wind – despite the only thing that protected him from the more bitter winds was the thin fabric of his Spider-Man suit, he could feel heat hum along the circuitry of the suit, warming his skin. This kind of chill bubbled up from within, somewhere deep in his gut.

Peter followed the tugging of the chills, his Spider-Sense waxing and waning like the moon, drawing him forward. He felt nervous, like eyes were watching him, making him twitch with every second that passed.

Leaning over the edge of the building, Peters gaze landed into the depths of a cold alleyway beneath him. The alley was mostly shadowed, a few dumpsters lining the edges and fire escapes trailing along the walls. And in the excess garbage bags piled around the dumpsters—

There was a boy. A small, frail boy, whispering things that sent Peter's Spider-Sense roiling.

The boy's left arm was missing.

'What the hell...' whispered Peter.

The sounds of Mr. Stark scrambling around emanating from his comms did nothing to deter Peter's attention. ' _What is it?_ ' asked Mr. Stark. ' _What? Kid?_ '

'I...' Peter kept blinking, trying to see if it was just a trick of the light. Maybe the shadows covered the boy's arm? Or maybe the boy was just buried under bags of garbage? It couldn't be _that_ serious, could it?

' _Kid, I'm going to connect to your visual feed_ ,' Mr. Stark said after a few terse seconds. Peter did nothing to object; he didn't have time to anyway, as a notification popped up in Peter's HUD in seconds, reading _TONY STARK CONNECTED._

'Do you see him?' asked Peter, climbing down from his perch on the roof. He crawled slowly, angling himself to allow light to filter through the lenses of his mask. The boy was still motionless, mouth moving to whisper silent words, looking as if he was at home in the garbage...or terrified enough to seek refuge in it.

' _I...what the hell_ ,' said Mr. Stark, repeating Peter's own words. ' _Is...is he okay?_ '

'I hope so.' The closer Peter crawled towards the boy, the more details made themselves known. The boy was thin, incredibly small and thin, couldn't be more than eleven, looking as if he was drowning in the dirtied green clothing he was wearing. The boy had wispy blonde hair and a curious birthmark on his right hand shaped like a star. He looked so pale that Peter could see the veins popping around his temples.

And the boy's arm was most definitely missing; Peter could see the stump of his left shoulder, still raw and edged with crusted blood and pus; there were lines of dark infection spreading from it like lightning towards his neck and chest. A stream of red leaked sluggishly from the boy's arm socket, and the stench of sickness and blood was so nauseating that Peter was scared he was going to throw up right then and there.

'His arm's been _sawed_ off,' Peter noted with horror, glancing at the ragged edges of skin. His Spider-Sense twisted. 'That's horrible. Who would do something like that? Who would do that to a _child?_ Oh God, we need to— we need to get him to the hospital!'

' _Kid_ ,' Mr. Stark's voice said softly in his ear, ' _kid, just look at your feet_.' Peter did, expecting to see something there, but he only saw the bright crimson red of his suit paired with vivid cobalt blue. Bright colours drowning in a dull and cold alley.

' _You gotta keep yourself calm_ ,' Mr. Stark was saying, grounding him. ' _Take things slowly, logically. Tell me where you are, and ask_ — _see if the kid is still alive._ '

'I've never dealt with _hurt kids_ ,' Peter muttered. 'And, um, I think we're near Third Avenue?' Peter then knelt next to the boy, avoiding the growing puddle of garbage sludge and blood as he looked over him. The boy's skin was clammy and pale, the lines of infection seeming darker now that Peter was closer to him; it looked like blood poisoning, but worse. Peter held his head closer to the boy's chest, and his heart quivered when he heard the weak _ba-bum_ of the boy's own heart. Alive.

Raising a hand, Peter tapped the boy's unharmed right shoulder. He felt so _thin and fragile_ underneath Peter's fingers. 'Hey, buddy,' Peter murmured to him, shaking him lightly. 'Hey, are you awake? Buddy?'

The boy's lips stopped moving for a moment, and all Peter could hear was the slow, quavering breaths and the thump of a weak heart. And then the boy opened his eyes, wide green eyes that were brimming with tears, which quickly latched onto Peter's masked face.

Peter's Spider-Sense pulled taut.

And then the boy screamed, violently flashing out his right arm and slamming it against Peter's chest. Even with his Spider-Sense whirring, Peter hadn't prepared himself for the boy's shove. For the shove that sent him _flying_.

Yelping, Peter was tossed off his feet and flung into the wall on the opposite of the alley. He slid down the wall, his chest aching from where the boy's fist connected with his sternum. Peter eyed the boy, who was still screeching his soul out as he tried to back away deeper into the garbage and disappear in it.

'No, wait!' Peter called, raising a hand. His web shooter flashed in the dim light. 'Wait, kid, wait!'

The boy ignored his calls, just kept howling, cowering with his right arm over his head while the remaining stump of his left arm wept red.

'Mr. Stark!' yelled Peter, fear clawing at his heart. 'Oh God, Mr. Stark, what do I do? What do I do?!'

Mr. Stark yelled back, ' _What's happening over there? Is that boy alright?_ '

'I don't know! He just _pushed_ me to the other side of the alley!' Peter turned back towards the boy and raised his hands placatingly. 'Listen, buddy, let me help. You need help, just, just calm down, stop screaming—'

'HELP!' screamed the boy, completely disregarding Peter's words and shoving himself violently against a dumpster, his arm latching onto an old, dilapidated microwave. 'Help, someone save me, please! _Get away from me!'_ he snarled, his frightened words directed towards Peter.

'No, I _am_ here to help!' Peter said, lowering his voice. 'Listen, you're hurt, and I need to get you to the hospital. Do you think you can—'

'Get away!' wailed the boy.

Peter's Spider-Sense burst to life, and he swerved back. The microwave that had been sitting on its lonesome had been picked up the boy and was launched at Peter's face, missing him by mere centimetres. It smashed against the wall behind Peter, shattering into a million pieces like glass.

No boy, regardless if he had two arms or one, could through a microwave _that_ hard.

' _Kid, sit tight, I'm on my way_ ,' Mr. Stark finally gritted out from his end of the line. The comms clicked off, and the silence in Peter's ear was almost deafening.

Turning quickly back to the boy, Peter said, 'Dude! You could've taken my head!'

'Good!' the boy said shrilly, voice laced with panic. 'Maybe that'll show you to stop hurting me!'

Peter blinked. 'Hey, do you know who I am?' he asked softly. 'I'm Spider-Man – I, I won't hurt you.'

'Spider-Man?' The boy scrunched his face in disgust and pain, and maybe even a bit of confusion, like he wasn't quite sure what he was being told. 'Are you one of the— the— no, _no, stay back!_ '

The boy raised his hand threateningly, and while Peter knew he could probably handle a super-strong eleven-year-old pummelling into him, he didn't want to risk the kid blowing up. Biting his lip beneath the mask, Peter desperately said, 'I'm— um, I'm an Avenger. Listen, Iron Man is on his way, he's going to help us, he's going to help _you_.'

The boy still glared at him, but Peter could see something tight within the boy's core unravel instantly. His voice hoarse and soft, the boy finally asked quietly, 'You're an _Avenger?'_

That one word had the boy locked on Peter's presence, his voice expressing his disbelief. Despite it not being true (well, the spot _was_ still open, he just needed to accept it), it was all that was needed to have Peter collapsing to the boy's side, nodding quickly. 'I am,' Peter affirmed. 'I am an Avenger, I'm here to help you.'

'You're not...' The boy waved a hand towards Peter's face, as if he was scared to think that Spider-Man had biologically large, milky-white, black-rimmed eyes. 'You're not...'

Peter didn't hesitate. He reached up for his mask, his fingers grazing the seams before tugging it upward. The mask peeled away from the lower half of his face, and Peter pulled it up at an angle so the right side of his face was left uncovered. He winked at the kid in front of him and smiled. 'See? I'm just like you,' said Peter.

The boy visibly relaxed, his cries and shudders dying almost instantly. The boy's green eyes sparkled with what looked like unshed tears, and he mumbled, 'Oh, thank you, thank you, please...'

Without wasting another moment, Peter pulled his mask back over his face and leaned forward to wrap his arms around the kid; he noted how the boy had flinched backwards but then relaxed into Peter's touch. 'What's your name, bud?' asked Peter.

'Um,' the boy said uncertainly. 'I— I don't know. Max, I think. Sorry—'

'That's okay,' Peter told him softly. 'We'll call you Max for now. Listen, Max, I'm going to carry you to the hospital. I'm going to tell Iron Man to meet us there, okay?'

The boy, Max, nodded hesitantly and Peter pulled the kid closer, adjusting him so the boy was pressed against Peter's left side. Max hooked his right arm around Peter's waist, burying his head into the crook of Peter's neck. Peter's heart hammered with worry as he watched Max's shoulder leak gooey blood over the front of his suit; did it hurt? Was Max in so much shock that he couldn't register his missing left arm? Who would do such things to a small boy like him?

Straightening, holding Max close, Peter flicked out his arm and fired a strand of webbing into the air. It latched onto a nearby building, and Peter launched himself upward towards the sky.

Max shrieked in surprise, his fingers curling sharply into Peter's side in fright. Peter tried to ignore the reflex to curl in on himself from having Max's finger dig into his kidney, and opted for yelling, 'Karen, call Mr. Stark for me, please!' over the rush of wind in his ears.

The A.I. of his suit chirped quietly, quickly carrying out the task by scrolling through a list of contacts that Peter had saved. The number to Mr. Stark's personal mobile blinked as Karen made the call. Peter had just swung over Saint Patrick's Cathedral when Mr. Stark answered with a stiff, ' _Kid, why are you swinging? I thought the kid wanted to murder you_.'

'His name is Max and we're on our way to the hospital!' replied Peter loudly, trying to navigate the jungle that was New York City with half of his vision vanishing behind Max's mop of hair. 'Mr. Stark, I'm heading for the one in Midtown – can you, like, save a spot for us?'

' _Sure, okay, you got it, kid. Get there as quickly and as safely as possible_ ,' Mr. Stark told him, the humming of the Iron Man suit loud and somewhat comforting. He didn't click off the line.

The next two minutes passed in a blur, with Peter taking a few seconds extra as he tried to figure out the best possible way to shoot his webs without jostling Max too much. Halfway to the hospital, Peter could feel Max's grip start to slacken, and he was terrified that the kid had fallen unconscious and was probably on his way to Death's doorstep; the infection crawling across Max's skin seemed a lot worse now in the light of the dimming evening sun.

With his Spider-Sense guiding him safely through the streets, Peter dropped lightly onto the ground, jogging slightly to slow his momentum. Midtown Medical loomed above him, windows glinting white in the shadows of towering buildings around it. People milled around, and Peter caught the sight medical professionals running up to him, yelling at people to move as their white coats fluttered like flags.

His wasn't sure what prompted him to open his mouth, but with blood dribbling down his front and a limp Max already slipping down from his grip, Peter was shouting, 'Here! Please, take him! Save him, please!'

Nurses carried a stretcher between them, and with gentle hands they pried Max from Peter's grip; he hadn't realised he was hugging Max to him. Peter watched the nurses lower Max into the stretcher before carrying him away to the emergency ward, a weight being pulled from Peter's chest and letting despair filter into his lungs from the gap that remained.

A nurse was shaking Spider-Man's arm. Peter turned to her sluggishly, faintly registered her question directed towards him. 'His name is Max,' Peter responded. 'His name is Max.'

'Yes, we know,' said the nurse patiently, calmly, but Peter could see in her eyes that even she was shaken up slightly. She tugged on Peter's arm, as if she wanted him to come inside. Peter followed her, people parting as they went. As they entered the waiting room, Peter was hit by the sudden wave of antiseptic, the smell quite literally drowning him as the nurse turned back to him and said, 'We just want to confirm that both you and Tony Stark were the ones who brought him in.'

 _Tony Stark_.

Peter blinked. The black-clothed man at the front counter had his shoulders hunched as he leaned heavily on his elbows, seemingly chatting with whoever was behind the desk. Despite the absence of the Iron Man suit or the signature blazer or the Pink Floyd shirt he wore earlier that day, Peter recognised the way the figure tapped his feet impatiently across the ground, the scuffed shoes squeaking slightly as he did so.

Peter swallowed down the lump in his throat, and the emptiness in his chest receded just a little bit as he quietly said to the nurse, 'Yeah, Mr. Stark and I brought Max in.'

* * *

Tony had offered money. The hospital took it without a word. Sometimes he wondered exactly when services that provided physical and mental support turned to lapping up money like every other organisation that thrived in New York.

After paying for the one-armed miracle Max's medical expenses, Tony lingered at the back of the waiting room and leaned against the wall, Spider-Man sidled up beside him with his head hanging low. Tony was aware of the discrete stares that were aimed at the two of them; it was rare for a superhero, let alone two, to be hanging around in the hospital for more than five seconds.

Spider-Man sniffed violently just then, and Tony thought he should have brought a packet of tissues.

'You okay?' he asked the young super beside him.

Spider-Man nodded stiffly, but Tony could tell that Peter Parker wasn't faring as well as he let on. Some of Peter's mannerisms leaked into Spider-Man's strong figure, like the hunched shoulders and the nervous fidgeting of his hands, making him seem even smaller than he already was.

'Do you think he'll be alright, Mr. Stark?' Peter asked timidly, gesturing to the corridors that wound away from the waiting room to the place where Max was presumably held.

'Hopefully,' Tony said, but he wasn't so sure himself. He tried to steady his voice, tried to hide any traces of doubt, but he was afraid Peter picked up on it from the stiffness in his voice anyway. 'He didn't lose a lot of blood, did he?'

'No, I don't think so,' Peter said. 'When I got there, his arm...his shoulder was raw, but it wasn't bleeding, and then when he woke up, I think it reopened the wound. I...' Peter fell silent and looked down at his suit; the red material was tinted a few shades darker from the dried blood, the cobalt blue over his sides and legs a dull and ugly purple. If it were not for the antiseptic smell that hung in the air, Tony was sure he would collapse from seeing the amount of blood on the kid.

The next few minutes lapsed in silence. Patients came and left, either for good or for future visits. Tony watched them idly, vacantly; they probably had normal lives to return to. He wasn't sure he could return to the life he was living an hour ago; seeing kids with their arms lobbed off did that to people.

'Where's your suit?' Peter asked after a moment. He waved a hand over Tony's form, gloved fingers twitching.

Oh. Right, Tony hadn't exactly shown him the final specs of this particular suit; the kid was trying to distract himself from whatever horrible news would soon turn up. Tony played along.

'It's a prototype suit,' Tony said, lifting a hand to tap it against his chest. He wasn't wearing normal clothes; instead he was clothed in the slim undersuit, the sides tinted grey and lined with orange. Against his sternum was a detachable arc reactor, triangular rather than circular, held to the undersuit through magnets and minute plating. The arc reactor hummed against his chest, brilliant blue light spilling outward.

'The arc reactor,' Tony continued, tapping against the small contraption, 'is actually a housing unit for nanoparticles. I haven't fully integrated the software into the nanotech yet, so most of the internal skeleton of the suit is still part of the undersuit I'm wearing.' He pointed to the metallic exoskeleton of the final suit that was still clasped to his body. It glinted, stuck around his joints, the spaces in between them waiting to be filled with the rest of the nanotech should he call them forth.

Peter nodded his head, the lenses of his mask contracting slightly as his eyes scanned over the basic form of the prototype suit. Then he turned away and made no attempt at conversation.

After a period that seemed to last forever, a nurse finally walked up to them, her hands folded in front of her. She was the first person whom Tony had run into when he first arrived at the hospital; she had quickly introduced herself as Amara upon Tony's arrival.

'Mr. Stark?' she called, her voice lilting in a way that helped Tony focus on her with the sounds of furious chatting echoing loudly around him. 'You and Spider-Man brought in a boy with an amputated arm?'

'Yep, that's us.' Tony pushed off from the wall, watching from the corner of his eye how Peter did the same. 'How is he? Max?'

'He...is not doing so well,' Amara admitted quietly.

Tony could almost feel the way Peter's body went taut, snapped to attention. Waiting.

Amara pulled the two of them to the side of the room to discuss without other patients overhearing. 'We initially didn't know who this boy was when you brought him in,' Amara said, 'so we had to run some blood tests and fingerprint identification. His name is Mack Hollister. His parents had registered him into a list of missing children late last year.' Amara's dark eyes glinted with sympathy. 'He was presumed dead, until you found him.'

'Yes, but will he be okay?' Peter stepped forward, wringing his hands and with a note of desperation in his voice. 'Will Max— _Mack_ recover?'

The nurse shifted on her feet. The cool glow of the fluorescent lights made Amara's warm brown skin look pale and sickly, and her silky black hair look wiry and grey. 'I'm sorry,' she finally said, 'but Mack lost a lot of blood on the way here. The infection that we have yet to identify had spread to most of his body and rendered most of his vital organs useless. Chances are that he won't make it to tomorrow morning.'

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember when I said I wasn't in the right state of mind when I wrote this story? It's true. Everything that happens in this story is based on my dreams. Every single thing (except maybe 6%) originated from me lucid dreaming like crazy.
> 
> You, lucky reader, have been granted access to the walking chaos that is my mind. I just hope you survive what's to come.
> 
> Also, I most likely will update this book AFTER I've written everything; I'm already halfway through the third chapter, I most likely will try to finish before halfway through December, so *maybe* other stories will be put on hiatus? I'm not sure, I just want to finish this story real quick, lol.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed it (after getting grossed out? Horrified?)!


	2. Condense and Collapse

* * *

— _CHAPTER TWO_ —  
_CONDENSE AND COLLAPSE_

Tony watched as Peter softly spoke with his aunt, voice quiet and hushed, as if he was worried about someone overhearing his words. It wouldn't have mattered anyway; they were outside in the hospital's parking lot, away from the main building, where the sounds of the city at night drowned out the words of the people. The night air was chilly and heavy, and the starless sky was dotted with grey clouds that sluggishly passed by.

'I'll be back before you even see the sunrise,' Peter promised into his phone. 'Yeah. Love you too, Aunt May.'

With that, Spider-Man sniffled and turned around to face Tony. 'Ah,' Peter said, raising a hand to point at something far away, 'we can go now, if you're ready.'

Tony eyed him for a moment; the front of the suit was dark, with raised bumps and crystalline edges coloured a dark maroon, as if someone had dumped a thick, smelly red paint onto him. Tony wondered how Peter could stand so still even with the blood staining just about every part of him.

'You sure you're good?' Tony asked finally.

The stiffness in Peter's shoulders never let up as he answered. 'Yeah. Yeah, let's go.'

'Okay,' said Tony, rolling his shoulders and readjusting the skeleton of his suit. 'Okay, let's go. And, not to brag, but you might want to see this.'

And, to tell the truth, he really wasn't bragging.

Raising a hand, Tony double-tapped the arc reactor that clung to his sternum. Almost immediately the tech began to hum, the blue glow rushing out like water. From the triangular sides, nanoparticles gushed out like waves along the shore, trickling down the skeletal frames of the suit before branching outward, coating his chest, his arms and legs. From nerve wiring to muscle plating to flexible armoured skin, Tony watched as the suit enveloped him in flashes of scarlet and gold right as the Iron Man helmet snapped close over his head.

Smiling smugly, Tony turned to Peter, the glow of the arc reactor washing over the young super's masked face. _'Ta-da,'_ Tony said, a little bit of glee leaking into his tone. _'I present to you your still-in-development Mark L.'_

Peter was most likely blinking like a deer beneath that mask. 'Wicked,' he whispered in awe. The shutters of the eye lenses of his mask were pulled wide open, and his arm was outstretched as if he wanted to stroke the suit with his fingers.

Straightening, Tony fired up his repulsors. Light and heat streamed from his gauntlets and boots, gently pulling the Mark L into the air. The flight stabilisers on his back broadened like miniature wings. Hovering, Tony called over his shoulder, _'Same routine as always, Crockett. Try to keep up.'_

The suit shot up into the air, leaving a trail of light and a whine of energy in its wake. Tony had only cleared the top of Midtown Medical's roof when he felt something latch around his ankle. F.R.I.D.A.Y., nestled within the suit's HUD, immediately began running scans along the suit's exterior, but Tony already knew it was Peter's webbing wrapped tight around Tony's boots.

With reassurance of the kid clinging onto him, Tony let the Mark L blast off into the air. The webbing stretched and pulled taut, and Tony could hear the gleeful whoops echoing from Peter as they clipped the corners of buildings and scraped the roofs. The crisp air crackled around them as they shot into the sky.

No matter how many times they had done this, Tony figured cruising over New York City would never get old. Lights had begun to flicker to life in the streets and in buildings, like the stars had touched down onto the Earth. Cruising over the city with the kid dangling onto him made the journey all the more thrilling.

(And frightening. He didn't want the kid to fall and explode with a _splat_ on the ground).

F.R.I.D.A.Y. mapped out a route across the city, but Tony had long since memorised the path they had to take; flying towards the same place at the end of every week made it easy to remember.

The New York City skyline faded behind him as Tony guided the suit to the north, past the suburban neighbourhoods and onto the long plains with highways being the only thing that occupied the grassy and deserted place. A few hundred cars trickled onto the roads like glowing ants. It took about forty-five minutes for the suit to reach the road that branched off the highway, and Tony cruised over the forest that popped up around it, watching as Peter's feet grazed the treetops with a loud rustle.

Here, the stars were a little brighter, the moon a giant disc of white that hung in between the clouds with a ghostly halo, lighting up the silent world around them. And then the trees fell away, the forest dissipated into fields, and the New Avengers Compound glittered into existence with its curving architecture and low buildings, glistening white in the light of the moon.

The river behind the Compound moved leisurely and soundlessly, the trees framing the entire property. The Quinjet hangars were propped on the left of the road leadings towards the Compound, while the old Stark Industries storage hung about on the right, but Tony ignored both of these buildings, and instead glided towards the central building. He swooped up slightly to slow the suit down, and Peter took that as his cue to unravel his webbing and land gently on the ground.

Tony dropped beside him with a heavy _clunk_ , and the lights in the residential building lit up in response to Iron Man and Spider-Man's presence. The two of them headed for the doors, slipping inside quickly and basking in the cool fluorescent lights inside. The lobby was large and fairly empty, the only things taking up space being the coffee tables and couches, and the front desk that sat at the far wall. To the right was the door leading to the residential aspect of the Compound, while to the left Tony could see the door that lead to the public entrance. He could remember the day, only two months ago, where he and Pepper stood side by side and declared their love to the public.

How far they've come, thanks to a kid who thought his promotion to the Avengers was but a final trial to test his limits.

Tony double-tapped his arc reactor again, and let the Mark L retract back into its dormant form, the nanites hurrying to condense and collapse within the arc reactor. Peter ripped off his mask, taking in a huge gulp of air, the exhilaration of the ride wearing off quickly. 'That was fun,' he said, the same three words he always said when the two of them flew together.

'Indeed, it was,' Tony agreed, picking at the skeleton of the suit still clasped to him.

There was shuffling, and then Peter timidly asked, 'Um, where's the nearest bathroom, Mr. Stark?'

Tony looked up at him, at Peter fidgeting uncomfortably in the Spider-Man suit, covered in hardened blood that looked as if molten rubies had fused themselves to his suit. Peter's skin was a little paler than normal, and his eyes flicked to Tony to someplace behind his shoulder. Poor kid.

Quickly, Tony pointed to the hallway just beyond the door to the recreational side of the lobby. 'There's a bathroom there. I'll get you a spare change of—'

'Yes, thank you, Mr. Stark!' With that, Peter hurriedly rushed past him, bolting for the bathroom. His footsteps snapped against the tiled floors, echoing sharply.

'...clothes,' Tony finished quietly. He watched as Peter disappeared into the hallway, then as the sounds of gushing water filled the air, Tony turned and promptly headed for the depths of the Compound. The first room beyond the lobby was the lounge and kitchen; warm lights bathed the tables and seats with a soft yellow glow, while the kitchen tabletops and utensils glittered silver under the white lights. Tony navigated through the connected rooms and climbed the stairs to the labs, a shortcut to the living quarters nobody but he and Peter used to their advantage.

In the lab, Tony stretched his limbs, popping the joints of the skeleton of the Mark L and sliding it off his undersuit. He let it clatter against a nearby workbench and called up to F.R.I.D.A.Y., who had now transferred from the suit to the Compound's mainframe systems, to continue the integration process of the nanites.

Once the A.I. had agreed to do so, Tony quickly exited the labs, slipping into the corridors connecting the two wings of the living quarters. Tony headed down the left wing; here, there were a lot more rooms designed to house any additional people who were going to join the ranks of the Avengers. The rooms that belonged to Wanda Maximoff and Sam Wilson were silent, closed. Tony walked past them with barely a glance at their doors.

He passed Vision's room and reached the door at the end of the wing. Some lame X-Wing Starfighter sticker was plastered at the very top corner of the door, most likely placed there to spite Tony because he would never be able to reach three metres without using his suit. Tony jiggled the doorknob and pushed the door open.

Peter Parker's room was both tidy and cluttered, tamed and wild. The bed was made, but the sheets were messily laid on top of it. The maroon rug was hidden underneath the pile of textbooks and the spare robotics parts Peter had taken from school. The desk to the right held a laptop, a few workbooks and a cup holding the kid's stationary. The bookcase placed to the immediate left of the door was mostly empty save for a few books the kid had deemed to be interesting. On the shelf, _The Knife of Never Letting Go_ was propped open, the words seemingly melting off the page.

Tony remembered the day he had spent in the labs in silence, Peter's commentary being the only sounds that Tony listened to. ' _Imagine how cool this would be_ ,' Peter had said that day, shoving the book into Tony's face. ' _Imagine you had your own sixth sense and you could talk to people with it_.'

' _I would be drowning the world with my apathy_ ,' Tony had admitted offhandedly. ' _No one would ever recover when I destroy the world with nothing but my excessive ego_.'

' _Untrue_ ,' Peter had said, but he was already sinking, lost to the many layers of the book in his hands.

Pursing his lips at the memory, Tony let his eyes wander the room until he located the wardrobe at the far end of the room. It was situated into the wall, right beside the windows which had their curtains drawn shut. Tony made his way over to it, stepping over the books and spare mechanical parts. He flung the doors to the wardrobe open and blindly reached in for a good set of clothes. He eventually settled on a pair of jeans and a cotton shirt, and then Tony began to retrace his steps through the Compound back to the bathroom.

By the time Tony had returned, Peter was still rinsing his suit. The kid had abandoned all dignity, standing barefoot in nothing but his boxers in favour of trying to rid his suit of the cloying blood that had stained the fabric. Tony felt nauseous as he watched the large volumes of yellowish liquid and chunks of red crystals drain into the sink, so he opted to wait by the door and gripped Peter's change of clothes like a lifeline.

They were both silent, until Peter finally said, 'You know, the kid didn't recognise Spider-Man.'

Tony raised an eyebrow, though not in a way that would further hurt the kid. 'So? There'll be people out there who live under a rock and not know who you are. Maybe this kid is the first.'

Peter sighed, gingerly scrubbing the fabric of his suit with his fingers, as if he was afraid to damage the circuitry; Tony wanted to tell him that it didn't matter. 'Yeah, but,' Peter began, 'for how long? I've been Spider-Man for over a _year_ now; the whole of New York knows who I am. Just how long has Mack been missing for?'

'The nurse said he went missing last year,' Tony said, remembering Amara's softly spoken words.

'Okay, but what about his arm?' Peter pointed out. 'Who just _saws_ a kid's arm off?'

'If you're suggesting it's Cletus Kasady, it's not,' Tony confirmed, shifting his weight on his feet. 'The guy's been locked up for a good while now; it would be a problem if his doppelganger appeared and unleashed carnage on us.'

Peter nodded, but he was still biting his lip in thought. 'I...I don't know,' he said after a moment. 'I just have a bad feeling about this. I mean, he had super strength and everything, literally shoved me across the alley...' He trailed off, as if he realised something. 'Sir, do you think there might be others like him?'

'In what regards?' asked Tony.

'Super strength. Or powers, or something.' Peter turned the water faucet off and wrung his suit gently, letting the discoloured water drip away. 'Mack shoved _me_ to the other side of the alley. He threw a microwave at a wall with one arm and it broke like glass. No one should be able to do that unless they have powers.'

Tony tapped a finger against his chin. 'Oh,' he said slowly. 'I think I get what you mean.'

Peter's expression slackened with surprise. 'You do?'

'Yeah. It's classified information, anyhow, so you have to keep your lips sealed about this, okay?' Tony gave Peter a meaningful look, and when Peter nodded, Tony huffed a breath before he began. 'During the time Ultron was making his move on Sokovia, the Avengers discovered HYDRA had been experimenting on humans with Loki's Sceptre, the one he used in 2012. Anyway, once Ultron had been defeated, I found numerous amounts of HYDRA's files still focused on human experiments, the ones that had given Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch, and her twin brother their powers.

'The peculiar thing about their research,' Tony said as he tried to figure out a decent way to explain, 'was that HYDRA seemed to be focused on a particular gene in humans. It's a randomly occurring mutation, about as frequent as albinism, one that supposedly lets a person breathe much more deeply than the average person. This gene was what allowed HYDRA to give people powers. But we know how that went down; most people died immediately after initial testings, while others devolved into organic mush. The Scarlet Witch and her brother were the only ones who came out of the experiments alive.'

Peter nodded slowly as he dried his hands with a towel. He reached out the door, and Tony passed the clothes to Peter, who began to pull them on. 'So,' the kid piped up, 'you're saying there is a subgroup of supers.'

A subgroup of supers? Tony hadn't thought of it like that. 'I wouldn't call it a _subgroup_ ,' he said slowly. 'I would call it chance; that people who breathed in deeply had a higher chance of living after gaining powers than people who didn't.'

The bathroom door was pushed open slightly as Peter stepped out. He had changed quickly, looking a lot fresher than before but still tired. The shirt Tony had chosen, which simply read _Sith Happens_ , seemed to exemplify that. Peter held the Spider-Man suit in one hand, still wet and crinkled, and gestured with his free hand as if he wanted to know a suitable place to dry it.

Tony simply gesticulated expansively, a vague answer telling him he could go dry the suit anywhere, as he led the kid back through the Compound. As they passed through the lounge, Tony headed for the fridge in the kitchen, reaching inside to grab the pair of sandwiches labelled _DO NOT TOUCH! THIS IS RHODEY'S_. Tony offered one sandwich to Peter, to which the kid happily took in his free hand. They were both quick to devour them by the time they made it to the labs. A quick check of the watch on his wrist told Tony it was nearing nine, and judging from the day the two of them had, it was high time they collapsed into their beds.

'Sir, you think I might have that gene?' asked Peter after he had wiped the crumbs of the sandwich off his fingers.

'I don't know, kid,' Tony said genuinely. 'I can check for you if you want. But who knows, maybe the genes for being sarcastic give you better chances of attaining god-like powers. I definitely qualify; I might even beat Thor at his own hammer game.'

Peter gave him a disinterested, deadpan look, just surveying Tony's stupidly smug expression as he draped his suit over a chair in the labs. Tony snickered at Peter's look, patting him on the shoulder and pulling him along through the lab and back into the corridors leading to the living quarters. The kid's muscles were still coiled tightly under Tony's grip, and his face was slack with fatigue and worry.

'Hey,' Tony called softly. 'Hey. Kid.'

When Peter turned to him with drowsy eyes, Tony told him, 'Look, kid, this is a first for you and me. I've never seen anything like this happen anywhere, and hopefully we'll never have to deal with this again.' Tony helped Peter open the door to his room, his messy and charming room with its quirks and personality.

'Feel really bad, though,' Peter mumbled, shuffling across the cluttered floor with an illegal kind of grace, even when he was tired. 'Mack seemed like a really good kid. I just...wonder why...'

'Hey, if Mack Hollister can shove even the amazing Spider-Man onto his butt, then he's in my good books,' Tony said, his tone strong and grounding to help Peter from spiralling into the dark thoughts a kid his age shouldn't be thinking.

Peter chuckled at that, twisting his fingers along the hem of his shirt, then he smiled at Tony in a humble and heartfelt way.

* * *

' _I've never seen anything like this happen anywhere_ , he said,' Peter hissed at the air. ' _Hopefully we'll never have to deal with this again_ , he said.'

He knew better than to question Mr. Stark's words; while they were often littered with weird analogies and half-hearted jokes, there was wisdom behind them. Wisdom and knowledge that belonged to a tired man. Peter put faith into his words, hoped that they would ring true when the cold, harsh winds would say otherwise.

But the words hadn't rung true. They didn't even _ring_ to begin with.

Because lying in front of Peter, almost sinking into the dumpster and bathed in the golden light of the morning sun, was a girl with her left leg missing and a huge chunk of her abdomen torn to a bloody mess. Lines of infection stretched up her arms and torso. She looked lost, her gaze vacant and apathetic, barely aware of the world moving on without her while some animalistic instinct tried to keep her alive.

She was the seventh child Peter found that week.

'Hey, there,' Peter murmured quietly to her.

At the sound of his voice, the girl turned her unseeing gaze towards Peter, her greasy blonde hair hanging like rat tails around her face. There was a bloody wound marring the side of her face in the shape of a crescent moon around her right eye. When her attention latched onto Peter, she moaned with a guttural rasp, ' _Dagger_ ,' and flung shards of light at him.

The daggers of light bounced around aimlessly, one nicking Peter's shoulder and tearing the suit and his skin, but he didn't care. He didn't care how his Spider-Sense was roiling and withering and how he was shivering under the gaze of the silent eyes that were always watching him and how he was bleeding and how he was tired and how he was _scared_.

He just didn't care anymore.

He just...didn't want to see this again. He's seen too much, he doesn't know what would happen if he saw one more child, buried in garbage and dying.

'Dagger,' whispered the girl, looking as if she had picked up on Peter's distress. Her eyes were rolling about her head, glistening with tears as she tried to claw at Peter mindlessly.

'I know,' Peter whispered back, gently easing her out of the dumpster as he readied his webbing. 'I know. I'm sorry, I'm sorry.'

'Dagger...'

'I'm sorry.'

By the time Peter had rushed her to the hospital and hovered by the window leading to her recovery room, the flatlining of the heart monitor was the only sound plaguing Peter as he frantically swung back across the city.

'I can't do this anymore,' Peter said as he buried himself into the couch, sniffing quietly. 'Why do I have to be the one finding the kids? Why couldn't it be someone else, like Daredevil? I bet he doesn't cry under that mask of his.'

Hovering over him was Mr. Stark, who looked just as distressed and as lost as Peter felt. In his hands was a box of tissues, but he just stood there like he was unsure of what to do with them.

Peter had hurried back to Compound shortly after the girl, later identified as Tandy Bowen, died that morning. He couldn't bring himself to go to school that Friday, for fear that his friends and teachers would see just how much of a mess he had become over the past week, and they would inquire the source of his problems.

He couldn't exactly tell them he was finding dying children with amputated limbs in the garbage, could he?

Peter reached up and grabbed a handful of tissues from Mr. Stark, surprising the man. 'Mr. Stark, I'm sorry for suggesting this,' Peter told him after he blew his nose, 'but I think there's something much worse going on.'

Mr. Stark's face scrunched as he moved around the couch to sit beside Peter. He chucked the tissues at Peter and placed a hand on Peter's shin. 'What gave that away?' the man asked, though Peter couldn't quite tell if it was sarcastic or genuine concern.

'I mean,' Peter started, 'for an entire week, we've been seeing kids in alleys and dumpsters. They've all had the same conditions: some part of their body has been sliced off, they've been infected with something, they have powers, and they've gone missing in the past year.' When Mr. Stark gave him a look, Peter insisted, 'Seven kids, Mr. Stark. _Seven kids_...it's too much to be a coincidence.'

'I understand that,' Mr. Stark admitted, leaning back into the couch. 'But I'm not quite sure what to make of it. Maybe it's an obsession, a Cletus Kasady 2.0.'

'But if these kids have powers, they would have been able to get away from people,' Peter reasoned. 'I mean, super strength! Light daggers! One kid could even teleport! If someone was attacking them, they would have been able to defend themselves.'

'But they didn't.'

'But they didn't,' Peter agreed sorrowfully. Then his thoughts perked up. 'But what if they couldn't?'

'What do you mean?' asked Mr. Stark.

Peter straightened, sitting ramrod on the couch as he turned to face Mr. Stark next to him. 'What if they couldn't defend themselves? Were the kids described as troublemakers or something before they went missing?'

Mr. Stark furrowed his eyebrows as he thought. 'No. No, they weren't. What does that have to do with them being killed?'

'What if they didn't have powers before?' pressed Peter. 'What if they were so easily taken because they didn't have powers? They couldn't fight back at first, and then they go missing, and then they come back with powers.'

Peter could see it, the way Mr. Stark's eyes lit up in some mix of disgust and horror as the scarce pieces began to fit into some gruesome picture. Like the mess that had taken over the past week had somehow made a little sense. Like, somehow, the events that had transpired a year ago in a lab in Eastern Europe had come back to haunt them.

'Mr. Stark,' Peter asked, voice hoarse and quiet, 'do you have access to the blood test results?'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cut off one head, another shall take its place >:)


	3. Simply Curious

* * *

— _CHAPTER THREE_ —  
 _SIMPLY CURIOUS_

F.R.I.D.A.Y.'s words still echoed in Peter's mind, rattling like marbles in a glass jar. As he crouched on the fence that bordered the balcony of the Empire State Building, he rubbed his fingers to stave off the chills that crept into his bones.

The past two days were both a blessing and a curse. Peter was somewhat thankful for not finding any more bodies of dead children over the weekend; if he had, he surely would have driven himself mad in moments.

But it was less enjoyable when the emptiness of the streets was filled with F.R.I.D.A.Y.'s sorrowful words.

' _The notes in Mack Hollister's results state that Hollister was diagnosed with iron deficiency anaemia_ ,' the A.I. had told Peter and Mr. Stark that early Friday morning that seemed so long ago. ' _Initial blood tests came back with complications; it was later found that Hollister's blood cells had become irradiated. Forceful absorption of radiation caused the rapid degeneration of cells and_ _prompt_ _ed_ _Hollister's organs to shut down_.'

Acute radiation poisoning. Mack, Tandy, and all the other children, all dead from the same radiation lurking in their veins.

Peter was hesitant to admit, but there was a time when Peter had first received his powers where he thought he was dying. He was sure of it when he saw that spider tumble into the isotope genome accelerator at the science fair and absorb radiation before biting him. He saw that, and he figured he would die a slow and painful death as a reaction from the bite, or he would collapse and melt from the radiation.

It came as a surprise, then, when Peter woke up the next morning to find he didn't need his glasses anymore.

Sighing, Peter tilted his head up to the cloudy sky, mottled grey and purple from the setting sun. Frost crackled under the soles of his shoes, the Spider-Man suit retaining his body temperature effortlessly.

'Okay,' he grumbled to no one in particular, 'what do we have so far?'

The suit's HUD flickered as Karen piped up with her ever-cheery voice. ' _It is presumed HYDRA has been kidnapping children and experimenting on them; it is uncertain, but it is believed that if the results they achieve are not satisfactory and the experiments are detrimental to the children's health, they are later discarded in the open_.'

'But it can't be HYDRA,' Peter said, despite wanting it to be true because it would have made everything so much easier. 'It can't have been them, they haven't been heard from in months.'

' _HYDRA is notorious for operating underground and hiding from the eye of the government, Peter_. _'_

'Yes, but wasn't HYDRA exposed? Captain America exposed them before, in 2014, I think. And then another guy called Coulson appeared on TV and outed HYDRA again last year.' Peter tapped his fingers against the railing. 'No organisation can bounce back like that, not even HYDRA.'

The lights in the HUD blinked, as if Karen was processing Peter's reasoning. ' _That is a fair point_ ,' she said after a moment.

'And now the question is, who else is out there?' Peter asked. Gracefully, Peter straightened to his feet, balancing delicately on the thin but sturdy fence before leaping off, the wind whistling sharply in his ears as he dove down the side of the Empire State Building. He had shot his first web and was about to fire his second when he said, 'Hey, Karen, do you reckon someone has a lab? They have to be nearby if they're able to kidnap people in New York and then dump them in the streets.'

' _Running scans on all labs in New York City_ ,' Karen hummed. The HUD was filled with lines upon lines of information, Karen sifting through numerous files of data at unbelievable speeds that it hurt Peter's eyes as he tried to focus on any particular word as it whizzed by.

The HUD blinked once, and Peter saw a small list of organisations. ' _Stark Industries, Oscorp Industries and Advanced Idea Mechanics all have laboratories centred in New York that specialise in human biology research._ '

Peter twisted on his web, gliding sideways and snapping his feet against the brick walls of a residential building. 'Well, it definitely can't be Stark Industries,' he said quickly. 'I doubt Mr. Stark has the guts to even see a kid with a bruise.'

Karen made a sound that resembled a chuckle. ' _I'm sure F.R.I.D.A.Y. can provide more detail into that._ ' In the HUD, she crossed out _STARK INDUSTRIES_ and highlighted the remaining two companies. ' _In addition to Mr. Stark's inability to harm children, the Stark Industries laboratories were dormant since mid-this year due to the relocation of equipment and resources upstate in September._ '

'Right,' Peter agreed. 'The Stark Tower was sold, and everything was moved to the Compound.'

' _Oscorp Industries' labs reside within Oscorp Tower_ ,' Karen continued, ' _And A.I.M.'s labs have closed and have been dormant for the past three years_.'

That piqued Peter's interest. 'It's been dormant for three years?' he asked. 'Why?'

Immediately, Karen pulled up a series of files and articles on A.I.M.'s previous projects and the impacts on the public. ' _Their status in the biotechnological community has dramatically dropped upon A.I.M.'s contribution in human experimentation_ ,' she said. ' _Aldrich Killian, the founder of the company, released a potential form of gene therapy by the name of Extremis in 2013; the initials tests had gone awry and produced devastating results, leading to the government to pull funding. A.I.M. had quickly gone into bankruptcy, and without the money to complete their unfinished projects they collapsed in a matter of months_.'

'Sounds like an evil organisation,' Peter murmured, watching as Karen eliminated _OSCORP INDUSTRIES_ from the list, leaving _ADVANCED IDEA MECHANICS_ to glow in the centre of the HUD like an omen. 'That was with the Mandarin terrorist attacks, when Mr. Stark when missing for a while, wasn't it?'

' _Correct_.'

'Okay.' Peter paced slowly along the wall, looking as if gravity had somehow flipped, which it had in a vague sense. 'Okay, cool, cool. So A.I.M. invented Extremis, and they quickly went onto human trials, right?' After Karen's chirp of agreement, Peter continued, 'And you said Extremis was a form of gene therapy. They dealt with altering DNA? Radiation?'

' _The information is classified_ ,' Karen said, ' _but it is most likely._ ' She paused. ' _There is an A.I.M. lab located in Harlem with its servers intact; perhaps they might provide us some suitable information_.'

'A lead,' Peter breathed. 'We finally have a _lead_.' He was already jumping and swinging away, calling, 'Lead the way, Karen!'

A few terse minutes passed by in seconds. Peter swung through the borders of Upper Manhattan and into the quiet Harlem, neon lights flashing and streetlamps blinking. He landed on the metal scaffolding that held up the large _Apollo Theatre_ sign, which flooded the street with alternating flashes of red and gold light. Across from them was a large, dilapidated building, its bricks mottled and piping rusted. On the ground floor were large windows, the text that had been sticking to it now peeling and faded. A.I.M.'s _Rappacinni Laboratories_ looked old and tired and abandoned.

'Is this the place?' Peter asked, despite the building's obvious evil lair vibes.

' _Unless you have veered significantly off course, you should be standing at its front door_ ,' Karen replied curtly.

'Jeez. When did you get so sarcastic?'

' _I learn from the best_.'

'Aww.'

Peter flipped over the _Apollo_ sign and landed nimbly on his toes at the lab's front door. By instinct, he rattled the doorknob, unsurprised to see it locked. 'Karen,' Peter said, 'is there any other way to get in? Any back doors or vents?'

Karen ran a scan of the building's schematics. ' _There is a ventilation opening in the east wall that leads to the lobby_ ,' she said, highlighting said vent in the HUD. ' _There are no security measures that I can detect, so proceed with caution_.'

'Sweet.' Leaping up, Peter scaled the walls of the building, slipping past the corners and into the dark spaces in between the lab and the neighbouring building. The vent Karen had shown glittered like silver, and with a quick tug Peter pulled it open. He plastered the vent cover against the wall with webbing to prevent it from snapping shut while he was still inside.

'Alright, I'm going in.' Peter had just squeezed himself inside with only his legs dangling out of the vent when he paused. 'Hang on. Um, Karen, what's Mr. Stark doing?'

Karen didn't reply immediately; a few moments passed before she said, ' _Mr. Stark is also conducting research on possible suspects_.'

'He didn't ask what _I_ was doing, was he?'

' _No, Mr. Stark was conducting research. I asked F.R.I.D.A.Y. on what he was doing_.'

'And what did you tell F.R.I.D.A.Y.?'

' _I told her that you were simply curious_.'

Peter froze. 'You know F.R.I.D.A.Y. can just rat me out to Mr. Stark whenever she feels like it, right? She can go ahead and tell Mr. Stark and he would know something is up the moment he notices that I'm _curious_ as to what he's doing.'

The silence that followed was hot enough to boil anything alive. The A.I. in the Spider-Man suit let out a guilty, ' _Oh_ ,' and Peter just couldn't bring himself to be mad at her. Inwardly saying his farewells to the sense of secrecy he possessed, Peter pulled himself further into the vents, dragging himself forwards with his fingers and elbows.

* * *

Tony enjoyed hacking to some degree. If it was for fun, he would be able to slice through every firewall in a matter of minutes, but if he hacking because lives were at stake, then he'd be expecting to scavenge every file in every database in seconds.

But, truthfully, lives _weren't_ at stake at the moment. Whoever had been kidnapping the children had stopped, giving them a moment to breathe. Three days of caution, three days of trying to figure out a decent plan to approach the kidnapper and put them down for good. Three days of Peter worrying his goddamned mind out, and three days of Tony worrying his own goddamned mind over the kid.

The thing was, Tony was ready to call up CIA agents to help investigate the superpowered children. He was ready to provide information if he had it, skirt around it and let people who were born for the job to do it, but he wasn't expecting to be so involved with it until Peter made it personal.

That confused Tony. What was there to make these disappearances personal? Maybe it was just him and his poor apathetic heart, but Tony, for sure, could see that whatever Peter did, he poured his heart and soul into. When the kid put his mind to something, he wouldn't let go, despite him not having any large impact or any personal connection to something as serious as finding children dying in the garbage.

Tony wondered if he would skirt around the topic if Peter became the subject of it.

Trying to swallow the bitter feeling down, Tony turned back to the screens in front of him as he chewed on his pen. He typed in a string of code to temporarily pull back on A.I.M.'s deep packet inspection to disable the firewall; he growled when the DPI remained in place, still lodged in the system.

He would have very well smashed his head against the keyboard and let C# try translate his frustration when F.R.I.D.A.Y.'s voice emanated from the speakers in the lab, her lilting voice now echoey in the quiet space. ' _Boss, I believe something has caught my attention.'_

'Oh, and what may that be?' asked Tony, eyes still glued to the screen as his fingers flew across the keyboard.

' _Karen from the Spider-Man suit has questioned on your current activities_.'

Tony paused, then looked up at the ceiling. 'Karen asked what I was doing?'

' _She stated the reason as to why; she asked because Peter was simply curious.'_

Tony huffed, then he chuckled. He pulled his fingers away from the keyboard and rubbed at his eyes; swirls of colour exploded behind his eyelids. 'The kid really doesn't know how to act inconspicuously, does he?' he asked. 'And judging what Karen said, she might have learnt a little _too_ much from him.'

The lights to the lab flickered as F.R.I.D.A.Y. stifled what appeared to be a giggle. Tony called, 'Can you pinpoint a location? If they've teamed up and are failing at being discreet, they're obviously scouting some place.'

The A.I. hummed as she worked silently. She then piped up, ' _The Spider-Man suit appears to be located in Harlem, New York. Peter's vital signs are steady and healthy_.'

Tony nodded, then blinked when he realised F.R.I.D.A.Y. had slipped in Peter's vitals; for what purpose, he didn't know, but he didn't mind the slightest. 'Fri, do me a favour and patch me through to the suit – forcefully, don't give Karen or Peter the time to react.'

' _On it, Boss,'_ F.R.I.D.A.Y. chirped happily. ' _Contacting Spider-Man suit.'_

A few seconds passed in silence, just empty static filling the air before Peter's nervous voice filtered into the lab: ' _Um. Hello, Mr. Stark.'_

'Hello, Mr. Parker,' Tony said, turning back towards the computers to try and disable the security protocols. 'Would you mind telling me what you're doing this fine evening in central Harlem?'

' _O-Oh, heh,'_ Peter stuttered; Tony could almost hear the kid worry his lip between his teeth. ' _What am I doing in Harlem, sir? Well, you see, it's a nice night, no dead bodies, and I heard that the Apollo Theatre was going to show, ah,_ Hamilton _? Tonight? Thought I would check it out—?'_

'Just spit it out, kid,' Tony interrupted, no heat in his words but the same curiosity that probably prompted the kid to ask what Tony was doing in the first place.

There was a resigned sigh on the other end of the line. ' _I was scouting,'_ Peter admitted. ' _I'm looking through this...abandoned A.I.M. lab. Everything's out of power, I might head back out and watch_ Hamilton _after all.'_

That perked Tony's interest. 'Wait, you're in an A.I.M. lab?'

' _Um, yeah. I can leave now—'_

'No, no. That's not— _I_ was doing my own research on A.I.M. as well. What made _you_ look into A.I.M.?'

' _Honestly?'_ asked Peter. ' _I was worried. I did some detective work (made me feel like Sherlock Holmes, truly) and deduced that HYDRA couldn't possibly be the organisation that's kidnapping children. I then figured that it was probably A.I.M. who were doing it because of, well, the whole Mandarin-Extremis debacle_ _? They are the most likely choices.'_

Tony shuddered the moment he heard those words; he hadn't thought about the Mandarin, with his stupid grin and his beers and his deranged grin as he threatened people beyond the screens for a while now. But he could still remember the unhinged smile of Aldrich Killian, glowing like a furnace. He could still remember Pepper falling into the flames, then wielding them with a fury he had never seen.

Yeah. A.I.M. seemed like the nutjob-organisation well-suited to steal and experiment on children. 

'That's a pretty good deduction, kid,' Tony said sincerely as he congratulated the kid. 'Definitely need that noggin of yours on the team.'

' _Aww, psshh,'_ the kid replied embarrassedly; shyly, even. ' _I mean, I didn't do it on my own, I had help. Karen did most of the work, I mean, you know.'_

Tony sighed, just shaking his head as he listened to Peter just mumble quietly to himself. 'So, where are you in this abandoned lab?'

Peter paused, quickly conversing with Karen before saying he was in the ventilation systems; he guessed he was above the lobby, unsure of where to go or if there were going to be any security measures further on.

'I'm trying to get into their databases,' Tony told Peter. 'But the DPI's stubborn, even for a server that seemed to have gone offline.'

' _Karen says there are back-up generators by the electrical board. We could go there and reboot the systems. Will that work?'_

'Have the generators been used?' asked Tony. 'They're not as effective if they've been used multiple times.'

' _No, I don't think so.'_

'Well, scram, kid! We don't have all day!'

The kid muttered something about how the day was already over as he squeezed through the vents and into a small room, with Tony sighing once more as hacked away at the coding that guarded the possibly useful information lurking in the servers. He found numerous network connections, and he filed the names and passwords away just in case. All the while, he could hear Peter diligently working, muttering things to Karen as he tried to reset fuses and reconnect wiring.

There was the sound of something massive clanking and then whirring with energy on Peter's end of the comms. A new update flashed in the corner of Tony's screens: _ELECTRICAL INPUT AVAILABLE. CONNECT?_

Tony might as well have smashed the _Yes_ button with Mjolnir.

Once the generators were back online and everything in the A.I.M. lab was reconnected, taking down that darn DPI was as easy as could be. He planted a phishing link deep into the coding and opened the files on another screen through the back door the link created. All the data from the servers streamed forth like water.

Tony snapped his fingers. 'Look at that,' he mused. 'Access granted. Spidey, we make the _perfect_ dream team.'

Peter hummed an agreement. ' _S'what I was telling you the whole time,'_ he said cheerfully.

Tony paused, unsure of what to say next. The generators were up, the servers were online, all thanks to the kid; if he wanted, Tony could just take over from here. But he figured Peter was just distracting himself from the events that had encompassed around him. Always distracting.

'I'll get F.R.I.D.A.Y. to give you remote access to the servers as well,' Tony said after a moment. 'We could always use an extra set of eyes.'

' _Oh, thank you, Mr. Stark.'_ No sounds of declining there.

Once F.R.I.D.A.Y. worked to get Karen access to the servers, Tony located documents that could be of interest and transferred them onto his hard drive. There were only a few, so he took the time to open each one and read through them thoroughly; any scrap of information would be helpful.

The first couple of files detailed the original version of Extremis' molecular structure. Tony knew it off by heart; he was the one who assisted in its creation after all. The next document highlighted the changes made to Extremis, the version that Killian manufactured. There were some concerned scribblings near the sections where Extremis' line of code glitched randomly and caused the human test subjects to explode. Beneath that, however, was something new.

Maya Hansen, the original developer, had written in some notes on Extremis' updated version. " _The Extremis nanotechnology was supposed to target certain DNA molecules"_ , her notes read. " _The original Extremis was designed to harness cellular proteins and bind with them to speed up the healing process, as shown with the trials using_ _the plant samples._

_"The newer variant, upon initial human testing, now identifies human genes that are compatible with energy absorption. The mutation for larger air intake, which has suggested to have originated over the last three thousand years, is the most compatible of the genes._

_"Even so, the gene for larger air intake can only do so much to handle the stress for accelerating healing factors. Most subjects, if their bodies have not rejected the initial injections of Extremis, will most likely become unstable in the next forty-fifty years. The gene for energy absorption and conversion will counterbalance this instability."_

Tony narrowed his eyes. So A.I.M. had been building off the same research HYDRA had as well. They both seemed to agree that the humans tested should have had the gene for deeper breathing, but A.I.M. went a step further to provide that the body needed to be able to handle and process all that extra energy.

He hadn't thought about it, but Tony's mind drifted back to the only other human who harnessed vast amounts of radiation: Bruce Banner. Dimly, as he leaned back in his chair, Tony wondered if Bruce had those genes for larger air intake and energy absorption.

A conversation they had shared, in the dark of night, slithered to the front of Tony's mind. He and Bruce were hunched over the tables in the labs at Stark Tower, having become familiar with one another after the Chitauri Invasion.

' _I have DID, Tony,'_ Bruce had shyly admitted that night, curling his fingers. ' _It's— it's not like those horror movie tropes. It might be, in my case, but...look, I know you respect me for who I am, and you respect the Hulk for what he is, but we aren't the same person. He's him and I'm me.'_

 _'So,'_ Tony had said after a moment, _'you have more versions of you running around in that head?'_

Bruce had shrugged. _'Maybe. They're all kind of similar – they're all just holding my anger in different places, but I think the Hulk is more pronounced. The accident might have had a hand in that.'_

_'The accident? You mean when you bombarded yourself with gamma rays?'_

_'Heh, yeah.'_ Bruce rubbed the back of his neck, his squarish face now gaunt and tired. ' _I theorised that whatever happened had happened, it allowed Hulk to manifest to, ah, certain triggers. Anger and anguish, most likely. My cells have dormant copies of themselves that only activate when I'm angry...those dormant cells are the Hulk's. They're the things that kept me alive. They aren't mine, and they're never going to be.'_

Dormant cells housing excess radiation. This was probably what Maya Hansen was trying to grapple. It seemed like a reasonable explanation, but Tony couldn't find it in himself to investigate the technicalities; he was a physicist and engineer, not a nuclear scientist and biologist.

And yet here he was, sitting and reading through documents regarding biotechnology whilst working alongside an ingenious product of biology and physics clothed in a suit symbolised by a spider.

Groaning, Tony let his head fall back against the top of the backrest of his chair, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes and squishing them until colours phased in and out of the darkness behind his eyelids. Why did everything have to be so _complicated_ nowadays?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Bruce Banner has dissociative identity disorder, he had a horrible dad, this is canon


	4. Ripped Off a Glacier

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologise in advance

* * *

— _CHAPTER FOUR_ —  
 _RIPPED OFF A GLACIER_

Tony couldn’t remember when he’d spoken, but he could remember that he had opened his mouth and told the kid to go home. Peter had protested, protested _way too much_ than necessary, saying he needed to help as much as possible to get to the bottom of the situation, but Tony had curtly replied that stretching a scouting mission for hours would not help said situation.

The kid just grumbled and crawled out of the A.I.M. lab, Tony watching the suit’s tracker disappear into the heart of Forest Hills before the suit shut down from inactivity. The silence in the Compound became unbearable after that.

The rest of the night passed by sluggishly…or maybe quickly, because the next time Tony looked up the dark windows already had wisps of the morning light slithering in. Monday morning was as chilly as all the other mornings (Tony hadn’t gone to sleep just to prove it) and Tony hadn’t found anything remotely helpful other than Maya’s additional research on Extremis.

He was considering wrapping it up on the files he had collected and was about to turn back to A.I.M.’s server again when F.R.I.D.A.Y. announced, ‘ _Boss, Mr. Parker is waiting outside.’_

Tony blinked. What was the kid doing out there? Tony waved a hand, hopefully letting F.R.I.D.A.Y. capture the motion and subsequently let the kid in.

Tony had shut down most of his computers by the time Peter walked into the labs, already dressed for school with his bag slung over his shoulder. A small sandwich, probably from Delmar’s, was fisted in his hand, while a piece of paper was in his other. On his right wrist was the watch Tony had made him a few days ago, one that displayed the time as per usual, but also transmitted Peter’s vitals to Tony’s phone.

One couldn’t be more prepared, after all.

‘So,’ Peter said, and Tony noticed the way Peter squinted, as if his eyes couldn’t stand the light. ‘Did you find anything while I was gone?’

Tony shrugged. ‘Nothing much, actually,’ he said. ‘What we already knew was just expanded upon; turns out that among the people who have the mutation for deep breathing also need to have a gene that helps with energy absorption and conversion. But this was just for Extremis, this doesn’t include any radiation like HYDRA’s methods.’ Tony rubbed his eyes to try and wipe the tiredness away from them. ‘Other than that, nothing.’

‘I didn’t get much either,’ Peter added, looking down at his feet. ‘Just a lot of…human biology jumble. There’s things that even _I_ didn’t know.’

And Tony isn’t sure what prompted him, then, to say, ‘Don’t tell anyone anything you’ve found. Not your aunt, your friend, the authorities.’

Peter visibly balked at him. ‘What? Why?’

‘I feel like we’ve sunken our teeth into something much worse,’ Tony relented. ‘This isn’t just some… _mutant genetic mishap_ we’re talking about. We’ve been dealing experimentation and projects hidden from the government. If we don’t keep this to ourselves, who knows whose eyes and ears are following us. We might end up endangering people more then we’re trying to help. We _are_ hacking and stealing files from a bankrupt and corrupted organisation from whom the government has pulled funding from, after all.’

The kid looked like he wanted to protest, but shut his mouth just as quickly, as if the guilt had gotten to him with its long, cloying fingers. Tony knew; the fingers never seemed to let him go either. He just wished the kid didn’t have to go through something like that.

‘I see,’ Peter said. ‘Okay. Yeah. Can do— I can do that.’ He looked down at his hands, his gaze flitting from the sandwich to the paper. ‘Oh. Um, May’s at surgery, and she—’

‘Is she alright?’ Tony asked. He had caught wind of May’s somewhat…deteriorating health, and he was willing to—

‘Yeah, yeah, she’s fine,’ Peter said, raising an eyebrow when he realised what Tony really meant. ‘Oh. Oh, no, what I meant was that she was _helping_ with surgery, some fella had his hands ruined or something from a car crash. Anyway, she couldn’t sign the permission slip for me, so I was wondering if you could…’ Peter lamely finished, then held out his hand with the paper. He was standing so far away, and Tony could just barely make out the logo for Midtown High imprinted on the corner.

‘For the vaccine?’ Tony asked. Peter nodded. ‘Alright, come here, lemme get a pen.’

As Tony scrambled around the lab for a pen, Peter had smoothed the note out onto a table. With a black ballpoint in hand, Tony returned and skimmed through the note, dismissing the personal information Peter and his aunt had already filled out and the description the permission slip provided (“ _You agree to allow your child to be vaccinated to prevent ACWY meningococcal and you allow for—”)._

Grunting, Tony muttered under his breath, ‘Oh, just ensuring my prodigy lives up through to adulthood.’ He could see Peter fidget nervously in the corner of his eye, but he paid no attention as he scrawled his signature onto the space provided. His pen hovered over the last bit of text on the page:

_…signed by (Parent/or/Guardian)._

It took him three seconds to get his hand to move again. Tony ticked the _Guardian_ object rather sloppily.

(They were there, but they weren’t _there_.)

Tony slid the signed note back to Peter, who took it quickly. Peter thanked Tony, then said something about how he needed to get to school soon, and he bade farewell before running out the door, saying goodbye to F.R.I.D.A.Y. as well; the lights flickered in response. The world was kind of muffled after that.

Rubbing his head, Tony felt as if he had just signed to something much more than he had bargained for.

* * *

Happy just grumbled a half-hearted, ‘Alright, see ya, runt,’ as Peter climbed out of the black sedan a block away from school. Despite the school knowing his professional relationship with _Tony Stark himself_ , he couldn’t help but feel wary of it with the other students. There were only two major reactions to it: they would either try to weasel their way to get into Stark Industries through Peter, or they straight up turned him away for spreading lies.

He was thankful his core class and the Academic Decathlon team didn’t make a huge fuss about it, going so far as to accept it, even. (Except for Flash, apparently nothing could penetrate his thick skull).

Smiling lightly, Peter waved to Happy, not even fazed when the man slammed the door shut and sped away in the sedan, kicking up a storm of dust and smoke. The morning sun was warm and light on his back, a welcoming change to the freezing temperatures of last night’s scouting mission.

Peter made his way along the streets, swerving around poles and people before Midtown High loomed into view. White bricks gleaming and brown pillars towering, Peter hurried up the stairs and navigated the halls to his class’ homeroom. Outside the door he greeted Ned with simple fist-tapping, an abridged version of their lengthy handshake.

As they shuffled into the classroom to their seats, Ned asked him, ‘So you got the permission note?’ He waved his own permission slip in the air as he sat into his seat.

Peter lingered by Ned’s seat and nodded. He pulled the note out of his pocket and showed Ned the looping signature of Mr. Stark. Ned’s eyes widened in awe; Peter could only feel the same. ‘I know, right?’ he asked his friend.

‘That’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen,’ Ned breathed as he traced his finger across the signature, looking as if he had seen the sole truth of the universe, then recoiling his fingers as if he had been burned. ‘This is a crime. I shouldn’t be looking at this godly signature. I mean, you got _Tony Stark_ to sign this measly permission note for you…dude, this is totally _more_ than a mentorship.’

Peter rolled his eyes. ‘Oh my god, if you suggest that Mr. Stark is my long-lost dad, I _will_ throw you out the window. You know I can.’

Ned was five seconds from exploding when their homeroom teacher barked at all the students standing up to sit down. The morning was fairly uneventful; English was just plain, with the teacher requesting students to write subjective Christmas-themed poems; and AP Chemistry was revisiting molecular arrangements of hydrocarbons and the most efficient way their covalent bonds stored energy. Morning break was mostly silent save for the grumble of students complaining about the vaccinations that were to happen in the next couple of periods.

Third period rolled in, and the sophomores, much to their exasperation, were directed to the school gym. Peter and Ned, having stuck together for most of the school day, dropped their school bags in the corner of their Biology classroom and followed Mr. Connors out into the corridors. Their footsteps were unheard in the students’ loud whispers, and suddenly Peter wanted the silence.

He wanted the silence, he _needed_ it.

Because there was a sense of wrong in the air, and he couldn’t hear it.

They turned into the school gym, where a dozen tables were set up. The bleachers were empty and pushed to the side, trying to make as much room as possible for the nurses who were prepping their supplies of needles and syringes and stress-relieving toys. There were security guards standing by the doors, clothed in black and sometimes with dark glasses on their faces, but the purpose for their presence Peter didn’t know.

Mr. Connors turned and gave everyone in his class a bright grin. ‘Alright, alphabetical order, everyone. Make sure you have your permission slips ready.’ Peter and Ned were pushed to other ends of the class as everyone tried to shuffle into order, forming one line as they watched the first class disperse among the tables that had been set up.

Peter bit his lip as he watched the nurses gently pull back the sleeves of students and asked them generic questions, like “ _Do you have allergies?”_ or “ _Does anyone in your family have any medical conditions?”_ or “ _Did you have—”_

Peter turned his head away and scrunched his eyes. Yeah, he ought to curse the super-hearing now.

The first two classes went smoothly and received their vaccines quickly, with some of the students who felt woozy sitting at the bleachers, and soon it was his class that was going next. Peter couldn’t help but crane his neck as he watched Ned shuffle up to a nurse; the two smiled, and the nurse readied her needle.

Peter had never been too fond of needles. Sure, they weren’t all that bad, he’d gotten vaccines plenty of times, even had his own EpiPen for a while, but the initial nervousness never left him, still pooled in his gut like a snake shifting around the rocks. He still felt that nervousness seeping into his bones, his muscles, setting like ice and sending waves of chills down his back. The watch Mr. Stark had made him felt like a large rock had moulded itself around his fist, grounding him in the worst way possible.

And then it was his turn, and he forced himself to move as if his joints had gone rusty. He walked over to the table at the far end of the gym, where the nurse beamed at him. A security guard glanced at him, his bushy eyebrow raising over the top of his glasses as he folded his large arms.

Ignoring the strange look, Peter sunk into the chair that sat by the nurse. She was pretty, with black hair pulled back in a bun and her pale skin dotted with freckles. She was dressed in a simple purple and green uniform. Her blue eyes were bright, sparkling as she asked, ‘Hi, there.’

‘Hi,’ Peter said, feeling the way his throat hitched as he spoke.

‘Do you have your permission slip?’ she asked, raising a hand and gesturing for it.

Quickly, Peter handed her the slip and she glanced down at it. Her eyes widened as she read through the note, and Peter could see her discreetly glance up at him and then look away just as quickly as she flipped through papers on her desk as if to confirm something. She must have been surprised to see Mr. Stark’s signature; he couldn’t blame her.

‘Alrighty,’ she said, placing the permission slip away and reaching down for a case at her feet. ‘I’ve run out of needles, so I’m going to grab a fresh batch, and then we’ll get started.’ As Peter watched the nurse pop the case open and rifle through it, his Spider-Sense crackled like ice.

It crackled and growled, like an avalanche, like a huge chunk of ice had been ripped off a glacier and sunk into the ocean with an unearthly, disjointed _BOOM,_ the only that echoed in the silence that came after it being _Stop it, go away, stop it, back off, sharp, go away go away go away—_

Peter blinked as the nurse straightened, stroking an alcohol wipe against Peter’s left deltoid, where his shoulder curved and dipped. She pulled the sleeve back further and pressed her thumb strongly against the place where she was going to inject him. ‘It’s just going to hurt a pinch,’ the nurse promised, reaching out to the table and picking up the syringe that fit snuggly between her fingers. Peter could see the liquid slosh inside it, tinted green in the light. ‘It’ll be over soon really quickly, okay?’

_Stop it, go away, stop it, BACK OFF!_

‘I, uh, I,’ Peter stammered. ‘I— um, can I go to the bathroom real quick?’

The nurse tilted her head at him, confused. ‘The injection is really quick,’ she said slowly, ‘you can go afterwards.’

‘No, I would _really_ like to go now.’ His Spider-Sense was screaming, recoiling from the syringe like it was poison. _It probably was._

Peter’s hands flew to his stomach as he lied, ‘I’m feeling sick, like, _really_ sick. Can I— can I just go? I really need to go the bathroom.’

The nurse looked conflicted, the syringe in her hanging haphazardly from between her fingers. ‘I…I suppose,’ she said hesitantly.

‘Okay, thank you, thank you so much, I’ll be really quick,’ Peter rambled to her, his words melding into one continuous jumble as he leaped up from his seat and bolted for the doors closest to him. The guards jumped back as he ran past them, skidding into the corridor and running down the hallways, leaving the school gym behind him. His heart thundered, the sounds of his feet hitting the ground echoing alongside it.

He slipped into the nearest bathroom, slammed the door shut and locked himself in the furthest stall. Peter’s hands were shaking as he pressed them to his chest, feeling the fluttering of his heart beneath his fingers. His Spider-Sense twisted and lashed outward, wary of everything because— because— that nurse, she was going to— she was about to _poison_ Peter.

She was about to poison him, with what, he didn’t know, he didn’t _want_ to know, but then Peter remembered all the other children, his classmates and schoolmates, how many of them sat by this woman and let her inject them? Were they poisoned too? What _was_ the poison, was it lethal, was it going to knock them unconscious—

Peter couldn’t hear himself over the rush of blood in his ears and the crackling of his Spider-Sense, and he pressed his lips together and forced himself to breathe in and out slowly, trying to get himself to calm down.

 _Think, Peter, think_ , he thought to himself. _You can’t just outright say that she’s poisoning children. You don’t have the proof. Actually, you do, but telling people that you have a sixth sense that warns you of danger will surely turn a few heads. Can’t have that, can’t have that, who else can we—_

 _Mr. Stark_.

It was like the noise in his mind had been sucked into blissful silence. Of course – he could call Mr. Stark, get him to call the school or something. The school would _have_ to let him come in, Peter’s connections to Tony Stark be damned. A man with that kind of power could easily call for an investigation into school vaccinations, right?

Peter fumbled for his phone, snagging it from his back pocket and pressing it closed to his chest we he thought he heard something outside. He quickly opened it and his fingers tapped onto the phone icon. The dial pad popped into view, and, with his Spider-Sense suddenly rearing up, Peter had dialled in the first five numbers when his phone glitched.

The screen exploded into an uncoordinated mess of colours, a horrible whine emanating from it before the screen went black.

Then the watch on Peter’s wrist burned against his skin and went dark.

Then the lights in the bathroom suddenly surged in power and then sputtered and sparked, shattering in a mess of glass and heat and unbearable _CRACKs_.

Yelping, Peter raised his hands over his head to protect himself from the onslaught of shards and dying sparks. The bathroom went dark, the slitted windows providing only a sliver of light. His phone and watch were hot against his skin. Peter turned the phone over in his hands, then tried to turn it on. Nothing.

He pressed harder on the power button, so much so he could almost feel the phone bending beneath his fingers. It still remained dark.

There was a horrible feeling sinking into Peter’s gut. It left him paralysed as he pressed himself against the wall, the coldness of the tiles painful against his skin. His heart thudded with fear, every thump of his heart painful in his chest like an anvil had been pounded against his sternum. He wanted to meld into the darkness and not come out.

And then he heard it. A soft voice outside the bathroom:

‘He’s in there, I’m telling you.’

The fear in Peter’s heart turned to absolute _horror_.

The voice, possibly belong to a man that Peter didn’t recognise, cleared its throat and called, ‘Mr. Parker, would you please come out of the bathroom? The teachers are worried, you’ve been in there for too long.’

 _Go away, back off, hide, go away_ , Peter’s Spider-Sense repeated. But Peter unlocked the bathroom stall and peeked outside. It was empty, the mirrors dark, and sinks dull, the thin lines of light coming from the seams of the door. He could see a pair of long shadows from beneath the door, like a pair of legs that kept shifting their weight on their feet.

Someone banged their fist harshly on the door. ‘Kid, if you don’t come out, I’m going to have to come in.’ A chuckle. ‘You wouldn’t want to have that.’

Peter slunk out of his stall and crossed the bathroom, silent as a ghost, his feet crunching the small bits of glass quietly. His eyes were locked on the shadows beyond the door. He clasped a hand around the door handle, feeling his pulse against the metal.

 _You’re not Spider-Man,_ he thought to himself. _You’re Peter Parker. Just go with the motions, it’ll be okay_.

Peter yanked the door open, the light of the corridor momentarily blinding him.

There were five guards outside, waiting patiently beside one another.

Their guns were cocked and loaded. Their guns were trained on Peter.

 _Scratch that_ , Peter thought. _They want Spider-Man._

His Spider-Sense blared just as the first gunshot fired.

Quickly sidestepping as the first shot clanged against the tiles, Peter barrelled into the guards, knocking them off-balance as he shoved them away. A guard tried to club him on the back of his head but Peter was quicker, grabbing their arm and pulling them off their feet.

As the guards tried to regain their footing, Peter took off running, faster than he had ever gone before. Suddenly the hallways of Midtown seemed like a maze, unfamiliar and twisting now that the panic had flooded his nerves. Those guards had guns, they had _guns_ at a _school_ and they were _shooting at him—_

Another _BANG_ echoed loudly, and a sharp pain pierced Peter’s back. He gritted his teeth to stop any sound from escaping as he skidded around a corner, hearing a guard yell, ‘Good one, Kravinoff!’

The sounds of the guards running towards Peter made his hackles rise as he squeezed himself into a corner. Peter reached backwards, his hands groping around for whatever had hit him.

In between his shoulder blades was a small dart, narrow and metallic, embedded deep into his skin. Breathing heavily, Peter yanked it out off his back, a little sickened to see blood dripping from its tip. He dropped it and started running again, ducking into the corridors to lose his pursuers.

Peter had only made it to the History classrooms when the world seemed to tilt a little. He blinked and tried to stop, his feet responding slowly when another group of guards made their presence known at the end of the corridor, yelling and pointing at him. Sluggishly, Peter turned to run down another hallway when—

He collided into the lockers, his nose smacking painfully against the metal. Peter’s world grew fuzzy and grey, and his Spider-Sense felt like it was drowning in mud: slow, tired, weak.

 _The dart_ , Peter thought as he raised a hand to press it against the wall; his adhesiveness was the only thing keeping him upright as he ran. _Must have been a tranquiliser. Oh God, I hate tranquilisers_.

His Spider-Sense writhed in silence when a hand shoved him into the wall. This time his nose _snapped_ under the force of his face slamming into the wall, already filling with something warm and wet. Peter coughed and violently shoved himself backwards, pushing the guard off him, but his sense of balance evaded him; he collapsed to the ground and tried to scramble to his feet.

‘ _Jesus_ , how is the kid still awake?’ someone asked. ‘Come on, hit him. Hit him!’

Peter managed to back away from a fist swung in his direction. He fell against a wall, and he glared at the black-clothed men surrounding him. ‘What the hell, guys,’ he growled at them, spitting out blood that he leaked from his nose into his mouth. ‘What do— what are you doing? What…do you want?’

‘Hell if I know, boy,’ a guard to his left with a thick accent spoke up. It was the guard that had eyed him as Peter had gone to sit down for the vaccine; his glasses were gone, and his moustache was thick as it curled around his mouth and chin. ‘The Boss wanted you; we simply are following his orders.’

‘Kravinoff,’ someone warned, as if they didn’t want Tall, Buff and Moustached to spill dirty secrets.

Peter watched them; they didn’t know he was Spider-Man? They seemed surprised to see Peter still walking from that tranquiliser. All Peter wanted to do was sleep, but even drugged his Spider-Sense was trying to swim through an ocean of molasses.

‘I think,’ Peter groaned when Kravinoff shoved him forwards, ‘I think you got the wrong guy. Please, just—please, man, I think there was some kind of mistake—’

‘ _“Peter Benjamin Parker”_ ,’ Kravinoff said, as if he was reciting something off by heart, ‘ _“age fifteen; enrolled in Midtown High School of Science and Technology, sophomore; afterschool internship at Stark Industries; known relative is May Parker, all other familial members now deceased”_.’

It was like all the air in Peter’s lungs had been squeezed out of him.

‘How—?’ Peter whispered.

‘Like I said,’ Kravinoff rumbled with a grin, his accent rough and taunting, ‘The Boss wants _you_. We are following his orders.’

Then he flashed out his wrist, a small device in hand.

Peter’s eyes slowly slid towards it as Kravinoff pulled the trigger. Two wires shot out, the hooks on the ends embedding into Peter’s chest, on either side of his sternum. His Spider-Sense screeched just as the Taser screamed to life.

Lightning coursed through him, and he lit up like Christmas lights.

Peter’s muscles spasmed and contracted, his cry viciously cut short as his body locked up, electricity running rampant through his nerves like a tsunami exploding out from a collapsing dam. His bones creaked and his vessels snapped and he could feel Kravinoff’s gaze wander all over his writhing body as Peter collapsed to the ground in a pile of useless limbs, body twitching as pain flooding his head.

His vision dimmed almost immediately after the electricity let up, the tranquiliser in his system working in tandem with the shock to send him under. Peter could barely hear the wheezing of his own breaths, or the voices of the guards, or the crackle of the radios they spoke into. He could barely feel the hands grabbing him, or the guards pulling him to his lifeless feet, or them snapping heavy cuffs around his arms. He couldn’t sense, couldn’t see, couldn’t move to get up and push them away.

_Oh God, not now, not now, no please, not yet, no no no Mr. Stark where—_

And the darkness that had been lingering at the edge of his mind clawed at him and pulled him screaming into the abyss, and Peter knew no more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :DD


	5. The Tiny Window In Between

* * *

— _CHAPTER FIVE_ —  
_THE TINY WINDOW IN BETWEEN_

It was midday when Tony just managed to crack another part of the mystery.

He had retrieved some of Wanda’s old blood tests from oh-so long ago, and was skimming through her DNA analysis. The tests themselves weren’t that comprehensive, just short and direct in the way Tony liked them. It was in these tests that Tony found most of Wanda’s genetics, and in those genetics he found another gene working in tandem with the larger air intake gene solely dedicated to harnessing a biological form of hydrocarbons and using them for energy conversion.

It was just as Maya had said – Wanda’s genetics both balanced out the radiation that HYDRA had infused with her blood and counteracted with the energy instability effect. Wanda was perfect in that aspect.

Now begged the question: if those kids Peter had found were bombarded with radiation and were equipped with the genes to balance it, then why did they die? If A.I.M. had been so focused on perfecting this precious balance for nearly three years, why had those children fallen ill from radiation poisoning?

Tony paced around the Compound in silence as he mulled over the facts. He had taken to reading some of the documents on his phone, but none of them made sense anymore; they seemed to be going in loops, repeating things that have already been said.

In fact, it seemed as if A.I.M. had been branching out moments before they collapsed to other notable scientists and researchers in the biotechnological and physics field, as if they were to trying to scramble together last-minute work to save the company.

 _“The human body is rather frail, even for the most athletic of Olympic athletes,”_ Reed Richards had contributed eloquently, bluntly. _“I believe forcing radiation, or any other kind of enhancement on the body, will be catastrophic should continuous doses be supplied.”_

 _“I think it’s an act of God,”_ Norman Osborn had preached, _“where He tampers with the Earth. Whatever He creates, humanity seeks to understand it more than we understand ourselves. We have barely scratched the surface of these mutants; we believed them to be a product of witchcraft in the Dark Ages. It might be up to us in the future to replicate and understand them better.”_

 _“Human experimentation? Go to hell,”_ Hank Pym had snapped, turning away from any further questions.

Tony pinched the bridge of his nose, glancing down at his phone when a notification popped up; it was Peter’s vitals, spiking for a moment before slowly flattening out again. Tony blinked; it must have been the vaccinations. The kid had said he was always wary of needles and the like, he was probably just nervous for it.

It didn’t stop his hackles from rising just a little, though.

An hour had passed, and Tony slunk into the kitchen to find any remains of food that were left in the pantry or the fridge for lunch. There were a new pair of sandwiches, this time placed in a plastic box and duct-taped shut with an angry sticky note yelling _GODDAMNIT TONY, THIS BELONGS TO JAMES RUPERT RHODES_ in thick black marker. Just to spite his friend, Tony retrieved a pair of scissors and cut through the tape to claim Rhodey’s sandwiches as his own.

He had only finished the rather bland butter-and-cucumber sandwich when his phone buzzed. Mouth still partially full, Tony turned to look at the kitchen island, where his phone was rattling against the marble tabletop by the fruitbowl. It buzzed for a solid ten seconds, then stopped, then started up again.

‘F.R.I.D.A.Y., who’s calling?’ Tony asked as he swallowed the last bite, rising up from his spot in the lounge. The world seemed a little too quiet for his liking.

F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s voice hummed from all around him. ‘ _The number has not been saved to your contacts,’_ she started, ‘ _however a quick search indicates that the number belongs to Midtown High School.’_

The sandwich in Tony’s stomach turned to lead. ‘Answer the call,’ Tony told the A.I. quickly.

She obliged, and suddenly a calm woman’s voice replaced F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s lilting tone. She sounded bored and tired, but somewhat frazzled as she said, ‘ _Hello, this Midtown High School of Science and Technology, is this Tony Stark?’_

Tony blinked. She was very blunt; she must be confident in Tony’s phone number, since he couldn’t remember it for crap. ‘Who am I speaking to?’ he asked.

‘ _My name is Janice,’_ the woman replied. She was about to say something, but another question was burning at the tip of Tony’s tongue.

‘Why have you called me?’ he questioned.

Janice hesitated, the silence heavy with her bemusement. ‘ _You are listed as Peter Parker’s second emergency contact,’_ she stated slowly, as if this was common knowledge, ‘ _should his primary guardian May Parker be unavailable to contact.’_

 _May is helping with surgery,_ came Peter’s voice from early that morning. She wouldn’t have been able to answer her phone even if she tried.

‘ _…as she was unable to answer, by protocol we have to contact the second emergency number,’_ Janice had droned on. ‘ _We had to call you before we called in the authorities—’_

‘Wait, the authorities?’ Tony straightened as if he had been struck with lightning, snatching the phone up in his own hands and holding it by his ear as if that would help him grasp every detail that was about to spilled. ‘What happened? Did something happen to Peter? Is he alright?’

Janice wasted no time in telling him. It felt as if the world dropped away from Tony.

May finally picked up in the evening.

In that time, Tony had quickly laid waste to most of New York City’s surveillance system, only to fry most of the security cameras and their audio recordings and their servers. The only things he found during that time were just dark screens, dark screens, _dark screens_.

Even the watch Tony had given Peter – the one that constantly blared out the kid’s vitals, the one that spiked mere moments before all security footage had suddenly looped and burned and crashed and plunged into darkness – was stuck frozen, Peter’s vitals hovering at a terrifying angle bordering unrestrained fear and death. His heartrate was stuck at a fluttering 154BPM, where any normal person would have their organs starve of oxygen.

But Peter was no normal person. And yet…

May finally picked up in the evening.

‘ _Oh, I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry for not picking up!’_ May apologised quickly and profusely, and Tony realised this was probably from where Peter had learned the ability to be the most humblest of beings. ‘ _I’m so sorry, I was helping out with surgery, I couldn’t answer the call, and when I did, I heard it was from Midtown, it was from_ school _, and I— I—’_

May paused, inhaling sharply as she noticed Tony’s uncharacteristic silence. She asked, ‘ _Tony, is Peter…is he alright?’_

Tony wanted to lie. He wanted to lie. He wanted to pretend that Peter Parker was not Spider-Man and that he was just a simple and humble boy going to school and priding himself in his skills and talents and befriending the weak and standing up to the arrogant and creating a world around him solely governed by his youthful charisma and childish naivety that had not— that _could_ not be tainted by the likes of Tony Stark and the evils of the world. He wanted to pretend.

But Peter Parker was Spider-Man, and the world around him had been tainted. Tony figured he had a hand in that, as much as wanted to deny it.

‘He’s missing, May,’ Tony mumbled quietly into the phone. ‘Peter’s gone missing.’

* * *

Peter’s awareness returned to him like the tide: gentle and quiet, lazily lapping against the shore as the water increased over time. Awareness was edged by blazing hot pain for Peter, like a knife dragged down his temple. It pulled at his muscles and grated at his bones like a saw, where doing anything, including lying down, just seemed to be too painful to do.

The floor was cold against his side, his arms pinned beneath him and freezing. Peter had a half mind to go back to whatever blissful darkness he emerged from, but he couldn’t shake the clinging fingers that had tied themselves to Peter’s soul. Couldn’t shake the dread that settled into his core like syrup.

The lights around him were soft and dull and the air warm and fresh, like the world had grown muffled and fuzzy, as if Peter had retreated into the depths of a tent or into the shadows cast by the Raoul Wallenberg Forest he and May sometimes visited in the summer. There was a tickling at the base of his neck, but he dismissed it quickly. He tried to stretch and push himself up when Peter found that he couldn’t. He was stuck to the ground as if someone had tied him there.

Dread sinking into his gut, Peter furiously blinked his eyes rapidly to rid them of the blurriness; his eyes wandered aimlessly. He was in some sort of squarish room, three of the walls made of green tiles while the fourth seemed to be missing.

 _Goodbye, Fourth Wall,_ Peter thought dazedly when wait, no – Peter squinted at it – the wall was made of glass, invisible but there, nonetheless. Small slots the size of his hands cut into the walls on either side of him were also made of glass, tiny windows that let in that same cool, greenish glow.

Peter’s eyes trailed in no particular path around the room. There wasn’t much, really. There was a thin slab in the corner to his left, resembling a bed, while the tiles along the wall alternated between green and white. His eyes then slid down and focused on the shiny objects underneath him. They cut into Peter’s chest and arms as he was sprawled on top of them, and he couldn’t directly figure out what they were in the shadows. With a grunt and his energy returning weakly, Peter pulled himself to one side until he collapsed onto his back, panting, the weight of the objects now resting on his sternum.

Peter glanced down at the objects and his stomach twisted into knots.

Large bands of metal, at least two inches thick, were wrapped around each of his forearms, just barely leaving enough room for Peter to move his hands and wrists. The thick cuffs were connected by a pair of rods in between, holding his arms in a fixed position.

Panic flooded his nerves and burned through his sluggish awareness like fire. Suddenly alert, Peter’s eyes quickly snapped down past the forearm cuffs, to the pale green clothes that he wore – the same clothing the children he found on the streets were wearing as they lay bleeding and dying.

‘Oh, no,’ Peter whispered, his body snapping up into a sitting position as he felt the corner of his eyes prickle with unshed tears. ‘Oh, no. No no no no _no_. This can’t be happening.’

The cuffs that bit into his skin said otherwise.

‘Oh, man,’ he groaned, sniffing as he examined the cuffs, yanking on them experimentally to see if they would give way; he was hugely disappointed to see that they barely even rattled. ‘This is horrible. Not how I was expecting this to go.’

He pulled himself to his feet, somewhat relieved to see his sense of equilibrium restored and at its finest. The effects of the tranquiliser had faded, and his senses were still aching at the unfamiliar and alien environment around him; his Spider-Sense curled and twisted, trailing along the walls like delicate fingers and digging at the skin at the back of his neck. Peter walked forward, the cuffs heavy, the metal dragging his arms down until his hands were level with his stomach as he pressed himself to the window. He angled himself at the edge of the glass, peering out into the hallway beyond the room.

The hallway was a lot brighter than the lighting inside, still tinged that weird green. The flooring was a mix of concrete slabs and metal grating, and the hallway stretched for a few metres before curving off to someplace in the distance, each of the hallways being flanked by two guards, armed with guns. Along the floor Peter could see long square shapes on the ground – like light streaming out of a window. Peter counted about ten in total, seven on his left and three on his right.

Ten cells where each one held a child, kidnapped from their ordinary life.

Backing away, Peter forced himself to slow his breathing as he tried to figure out his next move. He was considering trying to rip the tiles off the ground or something when he heard a harsh _BANG_ next to him. Whipping around, Peter eyed the small slot in the cell to his right. Unlike before, the smaller window was not bright – it had darkened significantly, because on the other side Peter could see a face staring back at him.

‘Hey,’ said the face.

Peter blinked, trying to reach up and scratch the back of his neck when he realised that would be virtually impossible with his cuffs. Instead, he settled with an equally bland, ‘Hey.’

It was a girl, who looked about his age and reminded him terribly of Michelle Jones. Her brown hair curled around her head and down her neck, and her skin seemed ghostly in the weird lighting. Her brown eyes were dark like Michelle’s – dark and glittering with intelligence and a boiling fury.

‘Who are you?’ asked the girl as she seemed to shift on her feet, but Peter couldn’t tell as the window only allowed view of the girl’s head.

‘Who are _you?’_ asked Peter, moving forward to stand by the window. ‘Where _are_ we?’

The girl pursed her lips and frowned at him. ‘I’m Katherine,’ the girl said. ‘I’ve been stuck here for a month, maybe, so I wouldn’t know where we are.’

Peter nodded. As he bit his lip, a multitude of questions teetered at the edge of his tongue, and he so desperately wanted to ask all of them.

_Were you kidnapped off the streets? Or did they corner you at your home or school? Did you see who captured you? Have they experimented on you?_

But he held back the questions and instead asked, ‘Do you have powers?’

Katherine gave him a surprised look. ‘How d’you know that?’

‘I— I’ve seen some kids on the street back home, and they all had powers,’ Peter lied. ‘They were just appearing, and…’

_They were sick and dying and looked as if they’ve been to hell and back._

Katherine nodded, moving back slightly. ‘Well, lucky you, now you get to be one of them. Maybe die in the process while you’re at it.’

Peter made no attempt to question that.

‘And to answer your question,’ Katherine said, ‘yes, I do have powers.’

‘What are they?’

‘Apparently I can walk through objects.’

Peter perked up at that. ‘You can phase through objects?’

‘And fly, though I don’t really know how that works.’

‘Really? You can phase _and_ fly like Vision from the Avengers?’ When Katherine nodded, Peter asked, ‘Then why haven’t you, I dunno, walked out of here guns blazing? You could already be free.’

Katherine fixed him with a withering glare. ‘You think I wouldn’t have done that the moment I found out?’ She sighed, then held up her hands, the same cuffs Peter wore clamped tight around her own arms. ‘These things are apparently made of adamantium. I tried passing through it, but I vomited the moment I tried.’

Peter would have winced in sympathy, since vomiting was truly something to be sympathetic about; or he would have once again become upset because he knew about adamantium, about how it was as strong as vibranium but lacked its ability to store kinetic energy, and that he was nowhere being able to crumple either of those metals with his bare hands. But his attention had been drawn to Katherine’s pale arms.

Stretching from the cuffs and spidering up her shoulders were lines of angry purple infection. Peter could see a particularly thick vein in her neck pulse with a sickening mauve colour, and suddenly Peter couldn’t look into Katherine’s eyes, which were bloodshot and dark and teary.

She had been here for a month. A whole _month_. And she was already sick.

‘What are they doing to you?’ Peter murmured to Katherine; horror laced in his tone as tried to keep his voice from wavering.

‘Things,’ Katherine replied swiftly, turning away. She chuckled cynically. ‘You’ll find out soon enough. They’ll get to you...’

Peter leaned against the wall, his back pressed against the cool tiles. The tingling at the base of his neck hadn’t stopped, and he turned to Katherine and asked, ‘Should there be anything else I should know? Like, a crash course or something? Um—’ Peter gestured as best as he could with his bound hands to something behind him ‘—like, what is that on the back of my neck?’

‘You can feel it?’ Katherine asked, seemingly a little bewildered. ‘It’s…it’s a mutant control device, it’s what the people here call it. Like a taser, but it’s stuck in your spinal cord.’

Peter’s eyes widened. Not only did children have their genetic tampered with, but they were tortured, too? What kind of sick person would allow such a thing?

‘You don’t feel it unless it’s been used,’ Katherine continued, ‘and you’re new, so how…?’

Frowning, Peter thought he might as well spit it out; if the people here were going to experiment on him, they were bound to find out about his powers. He would just be cutting the process a little shorter if he told Katherine. ‘I don’t _feel_ it, per se,’ Peter admitted after a moment. ‘More like sense it.’

‘So you _do_ have powers.’

Peter shrugged noncommittedly.

‘What are they?’ asked Katherine, leaning forward a little, something akin to delight and interest in her eyes. ‘Aside from the whole sensing thing. Wait, what can you sense? Can you sense dead people?’

Peter tried twiddling his fingers; it was a partial success. ‘I can sense danger,’ he said. ‘Like, personal danger, like if I’m about to get hit. And I have super strength, so that’s nice.’

_I’ll keep mentioning of the adhesiveness and the web-spinning and the Iron Man-summoning to a minimum._

‘How strong are you?’ asked Katherine.

‘Um, I can maybe lift a truck?’ In a city environment as Spider-Man, sure, but Peter was sure he could hold up even more weights, if him barely holding a broken 3,000-tonne ferry together was anything to go by.

Katherine seemed to be running calculations in her head. She glanced up, as if she was looking outside, then muttered, ‘Yeah, I think that can work.’

‘What can work?’ Peter asked her.

‘Getting out, of course,’ Katherine said snappishly, her exasperated tone appearing again. ‘I think you might be strong enough to help get us out.’ When she caught sight of Peter’s questioning look, she said, ‘I don’t have super strength like you, and I may not be able to phase through these stupid cuffs, but I do have a brain. And my brain’s telling me you might be our ticket out of here.’

There was a strange feeling welling up inside Peter – something between excitement and wariness. A nervous kind of energy fluttered inside his nerves at the prospect of being able to get out. Maybe get out in time to find a cure for Katherine.

‘Okay,’ Peter said. ‘Okay, so uh, when should we, you know, break out? Are there any other kids here? Are they fine?’

Katherine simply shook her head. ‘I’m the last one here. All the other kids were taken away maybe a few days ago. It’s just us.’ Katherine then turned to look at Peter, dark eyes shining, and Peter thought about her family, how they might miss her for these past few weeks. He’d hung out with Michelle long enough to know that the people who kept up a stony façade were usually the ones who craved for someone to even _look_ in their direction; it was obvious that Katherine desperately wanted to get back to her loved ones.

Peter would make sure she would get back home.

‘The guards are on their shift right now,’ Katherine told him quietly, as if she didn’t want them to overhear her. ‘We’ll wait for them to swap over during mealtimes, and then we can make our move.’ She eyed him suddenly. ‘You still haven’t told me your name.’

Peter glanced at the hallway outside his cell. He could imagine him and Katherine breaking out and running for their lives. He could imagine breaking out and taking down whatever inhumane organisation this was, whether it be A.I.M. or something else entirely. He could imagine preventing the loss of other children’s lives.

‘My name is Peter,’ he told Katherine.

Silence. Then Katherine smiled as she turned to face Peter from the other side of the tiny window in between their cells. ‘We’re going to have work on secret codenames, I guess. Kitty Pryde is awaiting your cooperation, Pete.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Ultimate Spider-Man' fans remembering the days when Peter/Kitty was a thing?


	6. To Trust a Sleeping Snake

* * *

— _CHAPTER SIX_ —  
 _TO TRUST A SLEEPING SNAKE_

May had hung up on Tony faster than a cobra could strike. He had only gotten six words out when the line went dead and the desolate _beep_ droned on in Tony’s ear. He pulled his phone back to dial May again, expecting and unexpecting the continuous trills of the phone as it tried to connect with May’s.

Everyone had their own way of processing shock; maybe May’s was to shut everything out and drown in the silence.

Tony did the same – he collapsed back onto the couch in the lounge at the Compound, burying his face in the pillows. The leathery smell of the couch tickled Tony’s nose as dread and guilt boiled in his gut, the early winter darkness outside the windows only accentuating the coldness of the emotions inside him.

‘F.R.I.D.A.Y. run scans on all surveillance footage in Midtown again,’ he groaned from where he lay.

The lights winked nervously. ‘ _But Boss,’_ F.R.I.D.A.Y. said timidly, ‘ _all security footage and audio recordings of the past five hours are corrupted. All footage and recordings during the time of the school’s vaccinations are completely destroyed.’_

‘Well, what could have caused that?’ snapped Tony as he shifted his position on the couch. He flashed out a hand and a holoscreen shimmered into existence above the coffee table. Supporting F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s case were the theoretical files that had been wiped when whatever happened had happened.

‘ _The people who were affected reported that all electronic devices within Midtown Manhattan had shut down at roughly the exact same time,’_ F.R.I.D.A.Y. said. ‘ _An electromagnetic pulse is the most likely candidate for such effects.’_

‘An EMP would most likely wipe out all electrical signals in an entire state, not a neighbourhood.’

‘ _A localised EMP centred at Midtown High School lasting at a duration of 0.0042 seconds would be able to mimic the effects experience today.’_

Tony sighed, rubbing his eyes as he tried to simulate various EMP detonations on the holoscreen, but running the simulations did nothing to relax his conscious. He was antsy, his nerves having been set alight. He wanted to get up and run and tear the city’s walls down with his bare hands, because the EMP was barely the problem. It was the kid who had disappeared with it.

It was the organisation that had the guts to snatch him right under his nose. It was the fact that Peter Parker was the one being targeted.

Tony raked his fingers through his hair, scratching his uneven nails across his scalp. ‘It’s got to be A.I.M.,’ he muttered. ‘It has to be them. We must have them tipped them off when we accessed their servers, it’s still connected so they must have tracked us down.’ That horrible rotten feeling welled up inside him again when he realised that it was _him_ that had let Peter continue investigating the Rappacinni Lab, when he should have told him to stop. But he was so engrossed with the mystery to take a minute and think about safety.

F.R.I.D.A.Y. was quick to reply. ‘ _Boss, it is highly unlikely for A.I.M. to be the ones to kidnap Peter. The company’s former heads had disbanded in the light of A.I.M.’s bankruptcy, and all existing members were removed shortly after.’_

‘But it doesn’t take simple _bankruptcy_ to stop an organisation who deals with human experimentation,’ Tony argued. ‘That didn’t stop HYDRA when they went down in the ‘40s. No, they continued to grow within _S.H.I.E.L.D._ ,of all places. They continued to grow, they created the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, they set the basis for Ultron.’ Tony sighed. ‘If HYDRA could do that, who’s to say that there _is_ another person out there, with enough money and ideas, attracting similar minded people.

‘That’s all it takes,’ Tony sighed. ‘Just enough money and an illegally immoral idea to make that sick, twisted dream a reality.’

 _And now Peter is a part of it, too_.

Tony was tempted to sink into the depths of the couch and never return to the light of day again when F.R.I.D.A.Y., adamant as always, piped up, ‘ _In my honest and humble opinion, Boss, I strongly disagree that Advanced Idea Mechanics has anything to do with the kidnapping of Peter.’_

Tony glanced at the ceiling, frowning. The A.I. would not normally start her sentences with her “opinion”, but that could only mean she had found something worth noting. ‘You have any proof to back that up, Fri?’

The holoscreen flickered, F.R.I.D.A.Y. now assuming control over it. She pulled up footage of earlier that morning, where Peter had stridden into the labs and asked for Tony to sign his permission slip for the vaccinations. Tony wondered what sort of importance the clip provided, but then F.R.I.D.A.Y. zoomed into the video just as the recording of Tony had smoothed the piece of paper.

F.R.I.D.A.Y. highlighted the words on the paper, circling the ones that she deemed as important. ‘ _This note_ ,’ she began, the lights in the lounge darkening a little, ‘ _implies a government organisation has distributed the vaccinations to Midtown High School. The note does not explicitly state which organisation is involved, but...’_

F.R.I.D.A.Y. trailed off as she navigated through government websites made accessible to the public...and then through private sites and servers, moving quickly and silently. Tony knew that one wrong move could send him behind bars – he had come close to that in his teen years when he had hacked the Pentagon on a dare. But he did it under the cover of darkness, and he made F.R.I.D.A.Y.; she had the skills, possibly even greater than Tony, to pull off a stunt like this.

A few seconds passed, and then F.R.I.D.A.Y. pulled up a document from the Department of Health, where it listed a number of hospitals and organisations tasked at distributed vaccines to school children. At the bottom of the list was—

‘ _Oscorp Industries was signed on to provide vaccinations to school children for the next two years,’_ F.R.I.D.A.Y. stated as she highlighted the company’s name. ‘ _They are presumably the ones who were there today.’_

Tony sunk into the couch, feeling the weight of F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s words settle over him like a blanket of lead. His heart quivered and his guts twisted as he stared at the name emblazoned in green.

‘Do you have—’ The words stuck to the back of Tony’s throat. ‘Do you have any footage of them? Do have _anything?’_

The lights overhead buzzed in a sombre tone. ‘ _Unfortunately, no; the EMP knocked most surveillance systems offline, so proving their appearance will be difficult should we attempt provided that we accessed private government documents.’_

‘You mean _you_ accessed private government documents,’ Tony bit back, but the snappishness of his tone didn’t quite get past his mouth.

 _Oscorp_ glared at him with an ominous red glow, all of Tony’s distasteful opinions on the company rushing to the front of his mind in an angry flash. Experience taught him better than to trust a sleeping snake, and Norman Osborn qualified that position. Sneaky, cunning, deceitful and selfish – Osborn possessed all those traits.

This new knowledge had Tony wanting to believe it. Osborn could very well be the culprit, but it was as F.R.I.D.A.Y. had said: they didn’t have concrete proof, and misinformation was often an enemy in a mystery.

He had been dealing with misinformation his whole life, now; surely he had learned his lesson.

Snapping to his feet, Tony called out to the room, ‘Alright, Oscorp is a suspect, but we’re not to sure on it. But there’s still a whole lot of information we haven’t covered from A.I.M.’s servers. We’ll just finish that and move onto Oscorp.’

F.R.I.D.A.Y. disappeared into the labs as Tony made his way into the workshops. He flipped the computers on again, reaching into their files to bring out the names and passwords of the networks the servers had made links to. Tony reconnected with each one as quickly as he could. The links led to a list of databases. Tony found most of the local databases offline or having been blocked by the A.I.M. servers, but he found that majority of the databases were online and situated in cloud servers. That Tony could easily enter.

The cloud allowed Tony seamless access, and he sifted through files that were disorganised and jumbled. He spent a fair amount of time looking through them and identifying some of A.I.M.’s future projects that would have been undertaken if the government hadn’t pulled their funding.

He was halfway through reading a proposition on the metal alloys needed to construct some unclassified hunk of metal dubbed the _Crimson Dynamo_ when he had gotten, frankly, bored. He moved on to a list of equipment purchases and transactions. The oldest transactions had been with Roxxon Energy and Rand Enterprises, mostly for equipment and fuels. But the newest transactions remained unnamed.

‘Fri,’ Tony said, raising his voice, ‘can you identify this company here? Any other mentions in other documents?’

He waved his hand over the blank space, and F.R.I.D.A.Y. seemingly found an immediate match. ‘ _The company has no official name,’_ she said a little bleakly, ‘ _however it seems as if A.I.M. and this company were in a temporary partnership before A.I.M.’s bankruptcy.’_

A few files, all focused on various points of interest, flooded the screens. Tony looked at each one carefully, read through the notes on genetic codes and the rise of so called “mutants” written by people who he didn’t know existed, read documents outlining how the isotope genome accelerator worked. Read through notes on genetic traits being transferred from one organism to the other.

Tony’s eyes came back to rest on the single image that was emblazoned in the back of each file:

_Project OO._

‘Project Double-O?’ Tony murmured. He peered at it to make sure he was reading it right.

‘ _It is the only lead we’ve got,’_ F.R.I.D.A.Y. admitted dismally.

Bitting his lip, rubbing his left wrist, Tony said, ‘Run a comparison on the people who wrote the reports – I want to know if they work in any other companies, if they know anything about the kidnappings and experiments. Go through any website or server or database that you have to.’

‘ _On it, Boss,’_ F.R.I.D.A.Y. chirped, diligently going back to the job Tony had tasked her with.

He knew F.R.I.D.A.Y. could get the job done efficiently, he had faith in her and her abilities. He just hoped she could do it quickly because at the back of Tony’s mind was a clock, and he feared that time – for both him and Peter – was running out.

* * *

Peter tried to act as inconspicuous as possible. It was his first kidnapping, after all, so he had to make sure his stone face would not give away the secrets that had been shared with him.

He was sitting on the bed of his cell, watching the guards at the end of the hallway. Katherine – _Kitty_ , she had insisted an hour ago – told him the guards would be changing shifts soon, possibly in a few minutes. During the time that they swapped, they would make their move.

Seconds ticked by, and Peter waited in silence, wringing his hands within his cuffs. He worried his lip between his teeth, bouncing his leg in anticipation.

Then he heard it. The sounds of footsteps shuffling, and quiet muttering. The guards discussing who was coming to take their shifts and where they will be heading to next.

This was it. Peter leapt to his feet and faced the corner, hiding his cuffs from the glass wall as an extra precaution. Once he had angled himself to ensure no one could see him, he forced his arms inwards, straining against the rods that separated his arms.

Katherine – _Kitty_ – had told him earlier that she had found a flaw in their cuffs but was unprepared to take advantage of it since phasing through the adamantium would make her sick. The rods in between the cuffs were significantly weaker, more brittle than the metal moulded around the arms because of the lack of adamantium content. With enough strength, one could potentially snap it cleanly in two.

Gritting his teeth, Peter bent over from the strain; his arms ached as he tried to push his arms together. He could feel the rods start to bend a little, creaking and groaning in protest, trying to hold their original shape until finally—

_SHRACK!_

The rods fractured, the large metal shards clattering to the ground in a harsh tintinnabulation. The sudden disappearance of the force holding his arms back came as a shock to Peter, and he cringed as the glass-like tinkling echoed in the air. The sounds died in seconds; he just hoped no one was there to hear it.

After waiting for a moment, Peter huffed out a breath, then chuckled as he glanced down at his hands. Kitty was right: the rods were hard to break, but definitely not impossible. Now the cuffs were still clasped to his arms like giant metallic forearm braces, but Peter figured he had no time to pry them off just yet.

Quickly moving to the glass, he peered out of it and glanced down the hallway. The guards on both ends of the hallway had gone; the new guards who would take their place would arrive in about five minutes.

Not wasting a moment, Peter brought his metal-bound arms and brought them down onto the glass with all his might. _CLANG!_

And again. _CLANG!_

And again. _CLANG!_

Bit by bit, Peter could see thin white lines spider across the surface from the impact points, stretching out from it like ice. He worked at the glass faster, slamming his fists at the glass. He worked faster still when he heard the faraway voices of the guards yelling, ‘What the hell is that noise?’

‘Faster, Pete, come on,’ Peter could hear Kitty chant from her cell; he could feel her gaze bore into his back from the tiny window situated between their cells. ‘Faster, Pete, _faster.’_

 _I’m trying, I’m trying,_ Peter thought as he slammed both his metal-bound wrists at the glass. A loud crackle emanated from the wall as the glass cracked further, looking brittle but still holding up, accompanying the now thundering footsteps of the guards running.

‘Come on!’ Peter hissed at the glass. ‘Come on!’

‘Peter,’ Kitty called out, her voice sounding muffled and strange as worry set into her tone.

The guards had arrived now, their guns glinting in the sickening green-grey light. One of them pointed at Peter and shouted, ‘The boy! He’s trying to escape!’

‘Stop him!’ another yelled as if it were obvious thing in the world.

(Which, to them, probably was).

‘Gahh! Stupid glass!’ Peter growled at the glass, smashing his fists against it with every word he spoke. ‘Stupid, annoying, stubborn glass! Hurry – up – and – just – _break!’_

With a final swing, the glass shattered in a rain of crystals. Peter stumbled forward from the loss of the barrier and he tumbled onto the metal grating outside, glass shards digging into his skin and clinging to his green clothes. He looked up, Spider-Sense suddenly roaring as he watched the guards charging towards them, their guns swinging to aim at him.

Peter leapt into the air as they opened fire, missing the bullets by mere inches. He wished he had his web shooters; they could help take guns out of the equation entirely.

One bullet whizzed by his head as he ducked and struck outward with his foot, slamming it against a guard and sending him colliding with two others. They all toppled backward, unpreparedness hanging thick in the air as they tried to organise themselves.

He took that moment to run back to Kitty’s cell, his eyes wandering around it to find the controls that monitored the locks to her cell. He spotted the control panel by the glass wall, and smashed his fist against it. Sparks exploded from it and it flashed red as it malfunctioned. The glass to Kitty’s cell disappeared into the ground with a quick sucking sound, and Kitty, still cuffed and infected and tired, stepped out with a wide giddy grin. Peter couldn’t help but smile back.

They turned to look at the guards, who had angrily climbed back to their feet and were readying their guns again.

‘Come on!’ Kitty shoved her cuffed arms forward, directing Peter down an unfamiliar path beyond the hallway. ‘This way! We’ll get to communications and get away!’

Nodding, Peter quickly dashed forward, an arm securing itself around Kitty as the two ran for it, his Spider-Sense being the only thing keeping them from being riddled with bullets. They turned into the hallway, the shouting and crackling of the guards and their radios loud in Peter’s ears. Kitty pointed out directions, and Peter followed, pushing them forward into long, winding corridors. They ran past rooms that Peter barely glanced at, their footsteps sharp, their breathing quick and their hearts thumping like there was no tomorrow.

They had taken a turn to the right when they ran into a patrol group. They had taken the guards by surprise, but they recovered too quickly. His Spider-Sense had barely rattled out an alarm when a guard smacked the butt of his gun against Peter’s face. Pain blossomed through his jaw as Peter shoved Kitty back in alarm.

‘Kitty, get back!’ he yelled at her; a guard lashed out and slammed him against the wall, pinning his arms to his side. ‘Kitty, just go! Get out of here!’

‘No!’ Kitty yelled back as she madly swung her bound fists at a guard, clocking him on the head, but Peter could see it in her eyes: the desperate glint that screamed, _We’re so close, we’re so close, I want to leave this place, please!_

Peter couldn’t blame her.

With a burst of energy, Peter shoved his legs into the guard’s stomach. The guard who pinned him was knocked back with a wheeze, and Peter snatched his gun from his hip and smacked it against the guard’s head, knocking him out.

Breathing heavily, Peter turned to Kitty and was about to help her when his Spider-Sense _screamed_. Peter’s hands flew up, fists curled, ready to fight back an enemy when he realised there was no one coming for him. Instead, his Spider-Sense zeroed onto the spot at the back of his neck.

The mutant control device.

Peter barely had time to react when it felt as if a knife had been plunged into his neck. Pain spread like fire through his nerves, setting his Spider-Sense into a frenzy as Peter’s vision tinted red.

This was different – it wasn’t like being tased, it wasn’t like being drugged, it was like someone had doused him in oil and set him on fire and dumped him into a vat of acid. His senses felt as if they were being boiled. It felt like he was burning from the inside out, and his control over his own arms and legs withered away as he sunk to the ground, curling up on his side as if that would somehow stop the pain _pain PAIN_.

‘Peter!’ He heard someone call his name, but it was so tiny and faint they might as well have been calling from the other side of the world. ‘Peter, no, please get up, get u— _aaaahhh!’_

That shrill sound pierced through the confusion and chaos in his mind. Peter peeled his eyes open (since when did they close?) and tried to make out things in his swimming vision.

Blurs and splashes of colours slowly solidified into shapes, and he watched with a paralysed horror as the guards held Kitty in headlock, choking her as she tried to grapple at them. The lines of infection had grown, purple fingers of sickness slinking up her face as she panicked.

‘ _K-Kh-Khhh—’_ Peter slurred, his tongue unresponsive and flimsy; it felt as if someone had stuffed his mouth with cotton. ‘ _K-Ki-Kitty?’_

Kitty’s wide eyes slid to Peter, and there were tears in her eyes, and she was yelling, she was crying, and Peter couldn’t hear her over the roar of yelling and of the blood in his ears and of his Spider-Sense howling. He couldn’t hear, he couldn’t hear himself think.

A wave of helplessness washed over Peter as someone roughly shoved their foot into his face. Stars blinked in and out of his vision, and nausea reared its ugly head as his own head snapped viciously to the side, his awareness smearing into one colossal mess of lights and sounds. The last thing he saw was Kitty being dragged away, her chance of freedom slipping from her fingers as she cried for Peter, cried for a family who would never know their daughter had gone down with bravery in her heart, fire in her blood, but she still ended up burned.

Another blow to Peter’s head and the world went dark.

He woke with a start.

Peter’s eyes adjusted to the darkness slowly, the pain his limbs like a ghost dragging its claws through his flesh. It was quiet – so eerily quiet, one which he would have been pleased with if not for the sense of doom that hung over him like the blade of a guillotine.

He shifted on his side, noting the tiled floor before him and the hard surface against his back and the biting cold against his skin. Peter glanced down at his arms, and a weary sigh escaped his lips as he saw the cuffs, now new and unbroken and sturdy, still clasped around his arms.

On his neck he could feel the phantom daggers of the mutant control device still lingering in his bones; the shock, or whatever painful thing it had been, had vanished, but now Peter could feel it embedded deep into his flesh, irritating his skin and burning quietly in the silence. Kitty was right, saying that one could only feel the device’s presence only after it had been used—

_Kitty._

Peter shot upright so fast he was afraid he had gotten whiplash. His breathing hitched and he swayed from where he was sitting as nausea threatened to drown him. The mutant control device seemed to buzz warningly against his skin as he rasped, ‘Kitty—?’

‘Settle down, boy. The neurotoxin distributed by the device is still in your system. I’m sure you would already know that your superhuman metabolism can only do so much.’

Peter froze at the sound of the light but melodic voice. It was close to him, judging by how softly the words were spoken. Probably somewhere by the small window in between his and Kitty’s cells. He had the notion that he had heard this voice before, and something stirred up inside his chest in the hopes of something being familiar. For a moment, he thought it was Kitty, having managed to escape her captors.

He turned to face the person who had spoken.

It wasn’t Kitty.

‘And don’t try to deny anything, Peter, my boy. Or, should I say, Spider-Man.’

Peter saw the devil.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *laughs in USM reference*


	7. Then, Pray Tell

* * *

— _CHAPTER SEVEN_ —  
_THEN, PRAY TELL_

It took about an hour for F.R.I.D.A.Y. to collate all the data she had found. Tony knew – he had timed her. As every minute passed, the knot in his stomach only grew tighter and more tangled. As he wandered throughout the Compound, his fingers tapped impatiently along every surface he passed, as if he was trying to knock the secrets from their hiding places. As if he were trying to tap a message to Peter, wherever he was, that said, _I’m coming, kid, I’m coming, just hang on, just hang on._

It took about an hour, but F.R.I.D.A.Y. delivered. ‘ _Boss,’_ she began slowly, as if she were talking to a frightened child.

Tony immediately straightened, snapping to attention as he glanced up at the ceiling. ‘What? What is it, F.R.I.D.A.Y.?’ he asked quickly, almost desperately.

‘ _The staff that are listed under Project OO have formerly worked in multiple companies,’_ F.R.I.D.A.Y. told him. ‘ _However, most identifications state that they have previously been employed at Oscorp Industries before their contract had been terminated in the past ten years.’_

‘That so?’ That horrible feeling in his gut was rearing its ugly head again, and Tony rubbed his temple in frustration. ‘Does that make Project OO a subsidiary of Oscorp?’

‘ _It doesn’t appear to be; all documents and contracts appear to dismiss connections with Oscorp entirely. It is possible for Project OO to be a separate entity that branched off from Oscorp and operates on a completely different regime.’_

Tony sighed as he wandered back to the lobby, the windows dark as they provided a view of the inky black sky. The world outside looked like it had been frozen in time; it had only been a few hours since he had gotten the call from Midtown High School, but Peter’s lack of presence felt as if aeons had passed in darkness.

‘Well,’ Tony started, ‘if they’ve been fired, surely Osborn knows the reason as to why they were relieved from the company, right? They might have been going behind his back to work on something else entirely.’

And it was plausible. Tony had experienced that himself, as well – Obadiah Stane and the small group of Stark Industries employees he had rallied together were immediately fired, if not already dead, for trying to replicate his own technology and uprooting the company from the inside out.

The lights flashed as F.R.I.D.A.Y. processed Tony’s words. ‘ _It is plausible,’_ she admitted, repeating the words of Tony’s own thoughts.

‘Tell you what, would it be entirely cool for me to contact Osborn and just shove all of this information at him?’ suggested Tony. ‘I could pressure him, make him spill the beans, as the kids say.’

 _As the kid used to say,_ his mind supplied unhelpfully.

‘ _Would you like me to retrieve Norman Osborn’s number for you?’_ F.R.I.D.A.Y. asked politely.

‘Please do,’ Tony almost begged.

F.R.I.D.A.Y. complied immediately, falling silent as she went to search for Osborn’s number. Tony had gotten comfortable on the lounge in the lobby, sprawled over it, limbs akimbo, as he tried to calm his racing heart. He needed to do something to stop his fingers from tapping otherwise he was sure they would tear through something out of impatience, of anger and frustration. He needed to channel those white-hot feelings that boiled deep in his gut into something else that preferably wouldn’t hurt anyone around.

His fingers itched for tools in his calloused hands.

His fingers itched to build a fortress to keep his emotions in check because no, he couldn’t afford to break down now, not yet.

_Hang on, Pete, I’m coming._

‘ _Would you like me to call Norman Osborn?’_ asked the A.I. from overhead a minute later.

Tony just waved a hand in a _Go on_ motion. He barely had to open his mouth before F.R.I.D.A.Y. dialled the number, the continuous rings of a phone trying to connect penetrating the air.

At the last moment, Tony asked, ‘When Osborn picks up, will that establish a link between you and the networks at Oscorp?’ He glanced at the watch clasped to his hand. ‘It is only 10PM; no CEO goes to bed before ten, right?’

F.R.I.D.A.Y. didn’t have time to answer because suddenly the ringing stopped. Tony’s breaths slowed to silence almost subconsciously as he listened to the sounds of someone else breathing filled the air. It was unnerving, hearing the breaths first before the voice; one would think the other was waiting for them, laying in the darkness for the perfect moment to strike with fangs and claws.

And then a low voice, deep and fluid like the water rushing down the cliffside, called from the other end of the line, ‘ _Hello?’_

The single word kicked Tony out of his stupor, and he wasted no time in snapping, ‘Oh, Norman, remember the time you tried to rip off my Nitramene? Yeah, I still remember that; I hope the lawsuit got you good.’

There was a warm chuckle on the other end as Norman Osborn let out a breathless huff. ‘ _Last I checked, the Nitramene belonged to your father, Tony,’_ Osborn objected. ‘ _You just expanded upon the idea, just as I had done.’_

‘The chemical formulae don’t lie.’

‘ _I suppose they don’t, no.’_ Osborn seemed to shift his position, his breath hitching as he moved before he asked, ‘ _I hope you didn’t call me just to remind me of this misunderstanding, Tony. You and I both know that is illegal spy on other businesses.’_

Tony’s mind flashed to F.R.I.D.A.Y. and his seemingly nonchalant question to her, but he quickly dismissed it as he said, ‘Oh, what can I say. We’re friends, aren’t we? Building on each other to make the great things this world has yet to see.’

Osborn hummed. ‘ _So you_ are _spying on me?’_

‘How lowly you think of me. I’m almost flattered.’

It felt like walking on a tightrope. Tony knew Osborn was a genius in his own right: cunningness and ambition were powerful tools at his disposal. An unwanted slip, a single stutter, and Osborn would follow you like a shark hidden in the darkness of the sea.

‘ _Why have you called, Tony?’_ asked Osborn as if they were friends. ‘ _It’s past ten.’_

‘I was thinking of a collaboration of sorts,’ Tony said, inwardly repulsed at the words that flew out of his mouth like second nature. ‘I think it’s been too long, and what good are two competitors if they never learn the other’s skills?’

‘ _Has your time with the Avengers softened you up?’_ Osborn questioned, sounding genuinely curious; the mention of the world’s so-called Mightiest Heroes send chills down Tony’s back. He was glad they weren’t talking face to face. ‘ _I didn’t think you and I would ever partner up after your whole Nitramene rant.’_

‘I’ve changed,’ Tony admitted, the only truth he spoke that night.

‘ _So have I,’_ Osborn murmured. ‘ _I would think it would come to you as no surprise when you see I’m declining your offer.’_

Tony expected this; like himself, Osborn thrived in working alone. ‘That’s unfortunate,’ he almost spat out. ‘I was really hoping it would bring us closer. No matter. So, what has been keeping you up late at night? Another project in your hands? You working with some other science-y fellow from the south?’

_Are you kidnapping children? Experimenting on them? Does Oscorp and A.I.M. have anything to do with this?_

‘ _Don’t you think this is a bit unnecessary?’_ Osborn sighed tiredly.

‘What? I’m sure some biotechnology conglomerate like you has had some interesting years. I actually haven’t heard from or about you since, what, 2007? What’s going on, Norman? Enlighten me.’

‘ _Interesting years, huh?’_ questioned Osborn slowly, almost amusedly. ‘ _Well, believe it or not, there was something rather bemusing…’_

‘No one uses the word _bemusing_ when they speak,’ Tony said, trying to sound nonchalant.

Osborn ignored him, and simply said, ‘ _As I was saying, something rather strange happened possibly back in 2014. Researchers from A.I.M. had come to ask Oscorp for employment. I turned them away, of course, but I wondered what made them so desperate to come to me...’_

‘Probably because the government pulled their funding,’ Tony suggested, sinking further into the lounge.

‘ _Oh. How unfortunate, then.’_

Tony could hear a lie as it was spoken. Osborn’s words were thick with it, all carefully layered to sound casual and genuine. Tony had been around enough hungry businessmen to know how they behaved, and he was sure Osborn was the same.

‘ _Is that all, Tony?’_ asked Osborn, sounding tired, his voice light. ‘ _I’m sorry I’ve smothered your hopes for a memorable collaboration.’_

Tony couldn’t help himself. ‘There is one thing, actually, Norman,’ he said. He straightened in his seat, staring into space as if he was directly speaking to the man’s face. ‘Was it Oscorp that supplied the vaccinations for ACWY meningococcal at Midtown High School today?’

Osborn was silent as Tony continued: ‘I’m just asking, since an...employee of mine attends school.’

A breath of disbelief. ‘ _You hired a teenager?’_

Tony wanted to snarl. ‘A perfectly capable one. And since he works under my company it is my responsibility to ensure my workers’ well-being is up to standards. Does the name Peter Parker sound familiar to you, Norman?’

There was a beat of hesitation as Osborn replied, ‘ _No, I’m afraid not. Why? Is he alright? I hope he doesn’t have a reaction to the vaccines.’_

‘I hope so, as well,’ Tony replied curtly, voice lowly. His heart thudded like a butterfly in his chest.

‘ _I hope Peter makes a speedy recovery,’_ Osborn said, and the genuine concern in his voice almost has Tony forgetting that he was talking with a devil. ‘ _I best be going, Tony. It was great catching up with you.’_

‘Likewise,’ Tony managed to ground out. ‘Have a good night, Norman.’

Osborn didn’t reply; he simply ended the call, the tone that came after long and piercing. The silence just made that one sound resemble the blaring of the horn signalling the end of the world.

All the energy drained out of his bones as Tony fell back into the lounge, his stiff posture melting into one of exhaustion. He rubbed a hand over his face, groaning, the knots in his stomach still tight and aching with dread and worry.

‘So,’ he mumbled to the silence swallowing him, ‘did you get anything?’

A moment of silence, and then F.R.I.D.A.Y. morosely admitted, ‘ _I managed to retrieve as much data as I could; however, it might not be a satisfactory amount. Oscorp’s security has improved over the decade.’_

Tony waved a hand to dismiss F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s complaining. ‘It’s alright,’ he told her, hoping the soft smile he gave reached her visual sensors, ‘as long as we got something to help us. It’s better than nothing, after all.’

_Hang on, Peter, hang on, we’ll find you._

* * *

Peter was sure he was staring at the devil. His Spider-Sense hissed and scratched at the figure sitting it front of him; surely that was the devil gazing down at him.

It was a man, as far as he could tell – a tall one with broad shoulders and a strong figure. He was dressed in a dark three-piece suit, a colour so dark the edges glinted purple, contrasting with the emerald green tie and highlights. The man was sitting in a chair in the centre of Peter’s cell, his pale hands folded delicately between his knees.

But the thing that unnerved him the most was the man’s face. It wasn’t a face at all, more of a kabuki mask welded onto skin. Scaly green skin glittered like emeralds that were touched with magenta. The ears were long and pointed like a goblin’s, and a pair of horns curled outward from the man’s forehead. The eyes were gold, pulled wide open and the pupils mere pinpricks of darkness. And the smile sent waves of unease rolling over Peter; it was manic and taut and it split the face in two with insane glee, revealing the sharp sets of teeth behind the green lips.

This was the devil, and Peter was going to have a hard time forgetting his face.

Or his voice.

‘What you have done is...less than desirable,’ the devil said, the grinning mouth still and unmoving as he spoke with a light and airy voice. ‘I expected more from you, Spider-Man.’

And there it was – a jolt ran through Peter as he registered the name of his superhero persona being spoken in the presence of Peter Parker. This was exactly what he was trying to avoid! He was trying to prevent the bad guys from connecting the dots and giving meaning to the powers Peter tried to hide.

The goblin didn’t seem to notice Peter’s inner turmoil, and he continued to speak without pausing, his golden gaze never breaking eye contact: ‘Luckily for us, you didn’t cause too much damage to our personnel. They are currently recovering; I see you really _do_ stick to that rule of no killing individuals—’

‘Who are you?’ Peter asked him, his voice hoarse. ‘Where’s Kit— where’s Katherine? Where are we?’

‘Questions!’ the goblin chuckled, unfolding his hands as he leaned forward. ‘Such questions! It’s been a while since I’ve seen someone so _eager_ to ask questions.’

‘What do you want?’ demanded Peter, raising his voice as much as he could without ripping his vocal cords.

The devil looked at him, cocking his head. The horns glinted in the dull light from the hallway outside. ‘Oh,’ the devil said, ‘I’m sure you know what I want, Spider-Man.’

Flinching, Peter mumbled, ‘Don’t call me that.’ Under the goblin’s withering gaze, Peter did what he did best: he lied. Swallowing, he elaborated, ‘I’m not Spider-Man. I— I _couldn’t_ be Spider-Man. He’s…he’s a _superhero_. I’m just…me. I think you got the wrong guy, man.’

The goblin just stared at him.

Just stared silently.

And silently.

And silently.

Like a beast eyeing its prey wriggle and writhe in the pit it dug itself into.

‘If that’s what you want, my boy,’ the goblin finally said, waving a hand nonchalantly as if he did not care in the slightest. ‘However, if you _are_ truly just Peter Benjamin Parker, then, pray tell, how have you kept finding those children’s mutilated corpses?’

 _Mutilated corpses_. For some reason, hearing technical terms bluntly describing something so horrible and heart-wrenching made Peter want to reach up and throttle the goblin, or bang his head against the wall, or slink into the shadows and never come back out.

He bit his lip to keep from saying something, but this seemed to be what the goblin wanted, for his ever-grinning sneer seemed to grow wider as he said, ‘Mack Hollister, Tyrone Johnson, Tandy Bowen…you know these children, don’t you? You have been the one to drag them from where they were found to a hospital, to try and _save_ them.’

‘Stop it…’ Peter whispered. He was shivering, but he wasn’t sure if it was from the cold or if it was from the rage boiling inside of him; it could have been both.

The goblin didn’t stop. ‘We have eyes and ears everywhere, my boy,’ he hissed in sick elation. ‘We know what you do in your spare time.’

‘God, I’m _not_ Spider-Man!’ snapped Peter, hackles rising as he quickly rose to his feet. The neurotoxin, as the goblin had stated, was still moving sluggishly through his veins, and jumping to his feet and been a bad move because now the world looked like it was lagging, moving through jelly and taking a few moments for it to register in Peter’s brain. The mutant control device burned with the promise of pain while his Spider-Sense tried to claw at the thing at the nape of his neck.

‘I’m not Spider-Man,’ Peter growled, stepping forward. ‘You got the wrong person. You kidnapped me and a bunch of other kids and for what? Are you going to kill me now? I don’t even know _why_ I’m here!’

His Spider-Sense jumped as the goblin flew to his feet, knocking the chair back as his hands snapped forward, fisting the collar of Peter’s shirt and yanking him forward, the . Peter’s gasp of surprise went unheard as he was almost pressed nose to nose with the goblin’s masked face, those golden eyes glaring hard into his soul. The goblin’s breath was sour and damp against Peter’s senses.

‘Save the petty act,’ the goblin snarled at him, shaking Peter roughly, breathing heavily into his face. ‘Your lies cannot fool me; I’ve watched you for far too long to have made a mistake. You laid the pieces out for me, and I merely fitted them together.’

Peter twisted himself out of the goblin’s grip, uncaring if he had done it with much more force and much more grace than necessary – grace that no ordinary fifteen-year-old boy should have. Glaring, Peter asked, ‘So why have you brought me here?’

Like a switch, the goblin’s demeanour flicked from aggressive and towering to relaxed and joyful. He threw his head back and laughed as if Peter had said something stupid. ‘You are the key to my work,’ he finally uttered, tone high and excited and _mad_. ‘The missing puzzle piece. The lynchpin of a revolutionary discovery. You, Spider-Man, will help me spur humanity forward.

‘Can you believe,’ pondered the goblin, ‘that we were only able to find you due to your own naivety?’ Peter frowned at the goblin as he continued: ‘After all, who shares their powers’ origins as if it were, how would you put it, something to be video logged on the Internet?’

‘I didn’t do anything,’ Peter muttered, turning away from the goblin. The mutant control device itched and burned into his skin, trailing a warning in his bones.

The goblin chuckled. ‘No? Then who was it who uploaded a video of themselves? Who documented their powers and theorised it was due to a _radioactive spider bite?’_

Peter cringed on himself, then; he _had_ done those things. He had only just turned fourteen when he was bitten, and admittedly it was stupid on his part to blurt everything out and upload it to YouTube. When his uncle died, he had been quick to delete the channel – only to see that others had begun to spread it.

‘A rookie mistake,’ the goblin agreed, tilting his head to regard to Peter from the side. ‘You should know that everything on the Internet leaves footprints back to your front door.’

_Footprints back to your front door._

That was how Mr. Stark had found him, after all.

Peter bit his lip at the thought of the man, back at the Compound. He would have no idea Peter was missing, would he? How long had he _been_ here? Surely the absence of any phone calls would alert to Mr. Stark that something was wrong. Right?

_Mr. Stark, I’m here, I don’t where I am but I’m here._

Peter shrugged, raising his cuffed arms and letting the light dance off metal. ‘Now that you have me,’ Peter asked, ‘what are you going to do?’

The goblin’s eyes glinted. ‘So curious,’ he muttered, as if he was fascinated. His permanent smile stretched farther. ‘The world is on fire, my boy,’ he said. ‘What more do you think I want?’

Peter’s stomach flipped with unease; the wordings were too vague to mean anything specific. They _could_ mean anything. But the way the goblin spoke, the way Peter could almost hear the grin behind the voice, there was no mistaking the connection that the goblin thrived on the madness the world had bred these past few years; he was going to harness the fire of the world and burn it with his own hands.

A mad man.

Peter flinched when the goblin appeared in his face, tapping a cold hand against his cheek almost affectionately. The green scales of his mask seemed almost iridescent in the odd lighting. ‘And you, Peter, are going to help me achieve this dream,’ the goblin said softly, tenderly; it made Peter sick.

The goblin straightened and stepped back, moving around the chair he had sat down in when Peter had first woken up. He stood by the glass wall and tapped on the surface, now unbroken and brand as new. Peter watched as the wall disappeared, and a pair of helmeted guards, their firearms strapped to their hips and legs, marched into his cell and grabbed Peter’s upper arms, their hands gripping him tightly.

Peter winced as he turned back to the goblin, who waved at Peter. ‘Enjoy your stay, Mr. Parker,’ he said merrily. ‘I hope you have learned from our pleasant chat together.’

And the goblin strolled out of his cell.

As Peter was shoved forward by the guards, he could hear a gentle voice float down the hallways, ringing along the metallic floors and walls, the words articulated clearly: the goblin singing.

‘ _When I get back home again, I’ll tell you what I’ll do…_ ’ sang the goblin from somewhere deep in the hallways, his words sharp and sending shards of anxiety through Peter’s heart. ‘ _I’ll make that spider suffer, for the pain I’m going through…_ ’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know, this book originally had 22 chapters, but they would have only been about 1000 words long, and the world knows I hate writing short chapters  
> Basically, I've merged about 78% of the chapters together :P


	8. Refuse to Comply

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late update! You can have two chapters later :P
> 
> Also TRIGGER WARNING: some needles and torture? I don't know if it even classifies torture, the way I write it. Just letting y'all know.

* * *

— _CHAPTER EIGHT_ —  
_REFUSE TO COMPLY_

It was a literal goldmine; F.R.I.D.A.Y. had gathered all the files she could during the call Tony made to Osborn. Their chatting had given F.R.I.D.A.Y. enough time to gather the more untouchable documents that higher-ranking employers and owners would have access to; Tony knew there would be a lot, so he helped the A.I. choose the more relevant files by narrowing the timescale. It was why he had mentioned the year 2007 in the first place.

And now, a whole slew of documents sat on his hard drive, waiting to be opened. A thread to the mystery Tony was trying to unravel.

It was nearing midnight, and Tony had poured himself a cup of coffee to jumpstart his brain again as he continued investigating on his laptop in the living space; his thoughts had become muddled, grainy with static. He rubbed at his eyes, which had gone dry and stung with every blink as he pulled up file after file after file.

Files that were chock-full of words and diagrams. Files that were barely filled. Files that covered the most peculiar of topics, such as the bio-armours Oscorp was developing to help soldiers in wars.

Like the transcript of the Oscorp presentation at Midtown High School.

Tony's throat shrivelled as he scrabbled to open the file, the document unfolding on the screen. He glanced down the side of the document, his eyes flicking down the list of names on the pages. Norman Osborn's name appeared multiple times as he talked about his bio-armours, along with the names of the children who had asked questions and had told Osborn their names.

Peter Parker's name was listed halfway through the document.

Tony skimmed through the section where Peter had been speaking, trying to imagine what the kid would have sounded like if he was talking.

> _P. Parker: I'm Peter Parker, sir. Um, how_ _do the armours suit  
>  the wearer?_ _Is it a recognition system?_
> 
> _N. Osborn: Well – Peter, was it? – we are d_ _eveloping scanners that  
>  we can integrate into the armours, and to identify how their   
>  genetics work so the armour can work with the user's strengths   
>  and fill the gaps in their weaknesses; it's a mutual _ _relationship  
>  between suit and wearer._
> 
> _P. Parker: So do the armours alter DNA to make this possible?  
>  With what methods?_
> 
> _N. Osborn: Hah! Questions that will be answered when the time  
>  comes, my boy, don't you worry; Oscorp is currently working   
>  on that as we speak. Now, anyone else with questions? No?_

This was the first time Peter had officially met and interacted with Osborn. This was the presentation the kid been talking about a week ago. Where he had joked about revealing business secrets and projects. Where he had found Mack Hollister in the garbage.

Had that only been a week ago? A week ago, and Osborn was probably still out there, possibly kidnapping kids? For what? Was he trying to gain more information to make these _bio-armours?_ Tony wasn't so sure; there had to be an ulterior motive at play, but he did not have enough information to make an accurate judgement.

'Oh, kid,' Tony whispered, glancing at the kid's name in the document. 'Please tell me you're safe.'

The name _P. Parker_ didn't reply.

Tony gritted his teeth as he closed all the current files, listening to the silence when F.R.I.D.A.Y. piped up, ' _Boss, there has been recent activity in Project OO's cloud servers.'_

'What kind of activity?' asked Tony.

' _A video accompanying a report. The files have been uploaded to a private folder labelled "_ _UXM #129_ _". Would you like to access it?'_

'I'm done with reading; let's if the video provides us anything.'

F.R.I.D.A.Y. was quick, ducking out of the Compound servers to retrieve a copy of the folder Project OO had just uploaded. In seconds a new folder appeared in Tony's hard drive. He opened it up, reading the title of the video, which was the same as the folder. The name of the report, however, was titled _"Katherine Pryde"._

Tony clicked on the video, then swiped a hand across the air, effectively transferring the video from his laptop onto the large holoscreen that appeared over the coffee table. As the video started, the edges were tinged in black, and sound caught up a second or two after images had appeared on the screen.

At first, all he saw was a room in shadows; the black was grainy, the pixels pulsing every few seconds. A timestamp with the time and date in the corner ticked away in small white font, but Tony dismissed it as he tried to make out things in the darkness of the room. Then he could hear a voice, a soft one, murmuring to itself: ' _Which one? The one over the table— no, the one_ over _the table, at the top of the— yes, there we go.'_

A light snapped on at the top, aligned with the centre of the video. It banished the shadows to the darkest edges of the room, and Tony realised the room was curved like a semicircle. The lamp overhead threw cold white light onto multiple objects: a table at the back of the room lined with files and empty vials and beakers. A pair of chairs. An apparatus holding up scalpels and tweezers, scissors and osteotomes. A long medical bed lined with white plastic, one half raised, that sat directly under the light.

A bed that had tied down the prone form of a girl.

Tony had to do a double-take when he first saw her; her curly brown hair reminded him of Peter's own messy locks, when he curled in on himself when he was asleep, relaxed. But the girl didn't look relaxed at all; she was in pain.

Her expression was pinched, he eyes screwed shut, her chest rising and falling as she, seemingly unconscious, tried to pry her wrists from the metal restraints that bit into her arms and legs. She was shuddered in her green overalls, as if she was cold, and she looked bone thin.

And the lines of infection had taken most of her. Horror twisted in Tony's gut as his eyes trailed the path the infection had taken: from her wrists to all the way up her arms, climbing upper her neck, scratching at her face. She looked ill, deathly ill.

A voice cleared its throat, and Tony flinched when he realised the sound had come from the video, not from someone watching over his shoulder.

' _Log #8.12,'_ the voice spoke up, the tone nasal and small. ' _Subject UXM #129, Katherine Pryde; gender is female, age is fifteen, date-of-birth is December 21, 2001. Subject obtained on November 15.'_

There was a sharp click, and Tony watched as something narrow and quick flashed out, like a stick with segmented parts, and tapped the restraints on the girl's restraints. The metal hummed when struck, like a bell.

' _Documented powers that have developed after the administration of the Formula include density manipulation,'_ the voice continued as if it were reading, ' _which is presumably how momentary flight is achieved. Weaknesses include adamantium; the subject is unable to phase through materials composed of adamantium and related alloys.'_

Tony watched as a man dressed in a white coat stepped into a view, a small stout man with black hair smoothed back and glasses pressed up his face. He waddled to the table, his gloved hand brushing over the slew of instruments as he pressed his other hand to the girl's face, peeling back her eyelid to glance at the dazed eye underneath.

' _Subject appears to be unconscious, as the subject has been sedated with 5mg of sedatives an hour prior,'_ the man murmured, and then he picked up a scalpel; its blade flashed in the light.

Tony was horrified. He was...downright _horrified._ He curled into his seat, feeling his insides boil and turn from the images that moved along the screen. He couldn't bear to watch, just listened to the mutterings of the man as he narrated to the camera and as he instructed someone (some _thing,_ no one could move that fast) off-screen to hand him tools.

It sickened him. No, not even that, it was _worse_ than sickening – Tony wasn't even sure if there was a word that could express how much disgust and horror roiled in his gut. Project OO— this man— they were _using children_ , poking and prodding and digging into them to see how they ticked, how their powers worked and how to build upon it. They were _harming_ them, with no concerns as to how the children were going to move on from this.

 _Log #8.12,_ the man had said. They had done this to seven children, seven times already. Possibly more. If Tony guessed right, there would have eleven other videos featuring this girl alone.

The girl made a whimper, and Tony dug his fist into his mouth to stop himself from cursing, to stop himself from collapsing in fear.

But he wasn't sure what made him let the video continue running – he could have skipped through, he could have skipped to the end, he didn't need to know every single thing that was happening.

(But maybe he was too scared to the point that he _wanted_ to know what happened).

(So that he would be able to know what to do if he saw Peter strapped to that table).

The video droned in the background like some mind-numbing static, Tony ignoring the words the man uttered until he said, ' _—and the clavicle appears to be...oh.'_

Tony froze.

' _The left clavicle appears to be broken. A possible result of the subject's attempt of...violence. The internal carotid arteries—'_ Here the man pointed with the end of his scalpel to an area along the side of the girl's neck, where a line of dark purple glistened ' _—appear to have already delivered the Formula to the brain; however, the infection, as seen in Subject PPSS #64, seems to have spread much further than expected.'_

The man shifted, and Tony could see a dark _mass_ stretching from the man's back, like something had been attached to his back and stretched into the darkness, swaying with metallic creaks and clicks. ' _I would have to_ _forcibly remove limbs where the Formula was first administered and where the infection first originated from, to lessen the chances of the infection spreading towards the brain; should the poisoning spread to the cerebellum, then loss of cognitive and motor functions can occur, as well as loss of control over mutations.'_

The man sighed. ' _The subject's arms w_ _e_ _re the site of the Formula's administration. If the removal of the arm...hmm, incision in the deltoids, and then manually...'_ The man nodded, then raised a hand, waiting for the something that helped him to hand him a tool as he traced a finger along the girl's arm.

'No,' Tony breathed, watching with mounting horror.

The man grasped the blade given to him and pressed its edge to the girl's pale, mottled skin.

'No, turn it off!' Tony quickly said, turning away, chest tightening. 'Turn it off! F.R.I.D.A.Y., turn the damn video—'

The video disappeared off the screen. All sound cut off, the lights returned to normal and Tony's heart was shaking at speeds that could definitely kill him. His lungs felt as if they were filling with dust. He rubbed at his eyes, a choked breath escaping him.

He wondered what to do now. He wondered what to do now that he witnessed a mad man...he couldn't think it. It felt like a sin to think about so cruel, so heartless. Tony's apathetic heart couldn't stand to see any child like that.

What he could think, though...what he could do, he could trace the equipment. Find matches, where they were shipped from, where they were shipped to. Run matches of the room, he knew what the room looked like, he could run a scan for similar rooms in the city.

Fatigue clinging to him, Tony set F.R.I.D.A.Y. to the task and was walking away to the living quarters when he realised that he hadn't looked at the timestamp of the video, but he wasn't willing to open the video up again.

He quickly opened his laptop and looked through the details of the video in a separate window and blinked at the date: _120116._

December 1, 2016. The video was taken yesterday.

Two days later, Tony found the amputated body of Katherine Pryde two blocks away from Stark Tower.

Two days later, F.R.I.D.A.Y. had found results. The origin of equipment varied greatly and provided no solid proof or evidence, they had so little importance that Tony wondered why he had asked to search for them in the first place, but the room...the room...

The room was located in a building at Oscorp's main headquarters, in New York.

Tony was silent as he stared at the map of New York, the room highlighted in the Oscorp building as bright as day.

And then he was consumed by a hungry blaze of pain and anger and _anguish._ Tony was burning on the inside as he stalked out of Compound, pressing his arc reactor to his chest. The fire inside burned everything it touched as he let it all out, shooting off in the Mark L and into, powered by his own rage.

Because Osborn had Peter and had the audacity to lie about it, lie about everything, and when he found the kid there would be no protecting Osborn from Tony's raw wrath.

* * *

The ground felt cold under Peter's bare feet. He padded through the hallways, the two guards on either side of him dragging him along. As time went on, the faint scratching of hunger made itself known as it clawed at the emptiness of his stomach.

The path they took was unfamiliar, but he could remember the some of the path he and Kitty had taken when they were running to get to communications. At this point he didn't know where anything was, so he made it his job to create a mental map with every turn he took.

The guards pulled him through winding corridors and past multiple rooms, their doors closed and locked. Some were lucky enough to have windows, and Peter peeked through them to see what was inside. Nothing he recognised, unfortunately.

He heard a creak. Peter tilted his head to the side, discreetly watching a door open from the corner of his eye. A guard walked out, the lights inside the dark room glinting like starlight. Peter eyed the space beyond the door, his gaze lingering on the computer screens, his ears straining to pick up the sounds of people murmuring instructions to members who were clearly not based in wherever they were. The communications room.

Without thinking, Peter's mind ran Mr. Stark's number over and over like a mantra.

The guard left the room and marched in the opposite direction, the door snapping shut behind him; the lights and sounds in the room were immediately silenced. It felt like Peter had fallen into the vacuum of space.

They kept walking, however. They passed more rooms which Peter assumed were research labs. Another door opened, and a stout man stepped out. Peter caught a glimpse of a large machine inside, and, despite himself, he asked, 'Ooh, what's that? Is it a portal? Can I walk out of here?'

'Shut up,' a guard growled. Even with his Spider-Sense rumbling, Peter couldn't do much to avoid the harsh smack to the back of his head.

The man closed the door to whatever lab he came from, a silver harness clasped over his back and chest. He slipped on glasses that had been tucked into the pocket of his pristine white coat, and his hair was greased back and oiled. His hands were gloved, the fingertips tinted with red.

Peter refused to make the connection as to what it could be.

'Well, what have we here?' asked the man. He peered at Peter through his glasses, then looked over the tops of his glasses as if trying to achieve various perspectives. 'Well?'

One of the guards tightened his grip on Peter's arm as he said, 'The latest one. AF #15, I think.'

'Subject AF #15?' the man asked excitedly. There was a giddy gleam in his eye as he grabbed Peter by the chin and turned his face this way and that, inspecting him as if he was a specimen trapped in an agar dish. It made Peter bristle with unease. 'Oh, wow, I wasn't expecting to see him so soon.'

'Boss was pretty impatient,' the guard admitted, voice hushed. 'He even visited the runt in his cell after the breakout.'

 _The boss_. Peter furrowed his eyebrows as he connected the bits of information. It made sense that the goblin would be the one managing everything, operating over everyone, the face of whatever organisation this was, leading it forward with his maniacal grin. The question, would anyone know his true name behind that mask?

The man waved the guard's response away with a flick of his hand, bumbling down the hallway in merry spirits, the guards marching after them with Peter in between. They all moved into a dark room, the man locking the door with an ominous _CLICK_.

Peter had to blink a few times for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, but even then, he couldn't make out any definite shapes. It was only when the man had turned the light on that Peter's heart began to sink at what was spread out before him.

It was a room bent into the shape of a semicircle, the curved wall lined with a long table. Piles of papers and books were tucked towards its edges as multiple beakers and bottles littered its entirety; the beakers were filled with different liquids, some sparkling while others were dull and transparent. In the centre of the ceiling was a giant lamp, where majority of the light was coming from. Directly underneath it was a medical bed, like the ones found in hospitals except there were metal restraints, glinting in the light.

The guards shoved Peter towards the bed, and only his adhesiveness and sense of balance kept him from colliding with the bed. He turned sharply on his heel to face the man and the guards, one of the restraints digging into his back.

The man had ripped off his dirtied gloves and was slipping on a pair of new ones as he stared at the guards. 'Well, what are you waiting for?' he asked them. 'Uncuff him.'

The guard on the left shifted uneasily on his feet as he looked at Peter. Good; he kind of wanted to intimidate them. 'But, Doctor,' the guard said as he angled himself towards the man, 'he broke out. Of the cuffs, I mean. Are you sure—?'

'Yes, yes, we'll be ready,' the man said.

The guard grumbled as he stepped forward. Peter watched, waited, as the guarded reached out and filled with the cuffs around Peter's arms. The man pressed his fingers against some kind of scanning component set just below Peter's elbow, and the cuffs hissed as they snapped open.

Without wasting a moment, Peter lashed out, yanking his arms out of the cuffs and shoving his hands against the guard, sending him flying backwards. He collided with the second guard and they tumbled to the ground with loud yelps, their helmeted heads cracking on the ground.

Peter raced from the bed, jumping over their tangled bodies as he ran for the door. His hands flew across the metal door, trying to find the mechanism that would unlock when his Spider-Sense spiked, crying out in warning as it seemed to slither all over his neck and down his back.

It was like a stone dropped in Peter's stomach. The mutant control device, he forgot all about it. The man was probably going to shock him—

The shock never came. Instead, something cold and metallic clamped around Peter's back and yanked him backwards. He was ripped off his feet, Peter going airborne for a second before he was flung to the ground. His chin smacked against his chest as the wind was knocked out of his lungs. Pain crackled up his back, and his Spider-Sense went haywire, but Peter was too dazed to do anything but cast an alarmed look at the thing that folded over his neck.

A giant claw, metallic and long and _alien_ , gripped him by the front and lifted him into the air, his feet just barely grazing against the ground. The claw was attached to an arm, segmented and undulating as it moved to drop Peter onto the medical bed, holding him in place as the man strode forward with a sad smile on his lips.

The man whose metallic arm sprouted from his back.

'What the hell is that?' Peter could barely hear his own voice over the angered clicks and whirs of the arm as it pushed him further into the bed. He reached up to try prying it off, but another two arms shot out from the man's back and clamped over his arms, effectively pinning him.

The man just stepped forward and did up the restraints over Peter's arms and legs, the metal restraints clicking shut. Once he was done, the claws retracting and disappearing seamlessly into the harness he wore, as if they were never there to begin with. He fixed Peter with an almost exasperated look after he gave a sweeping glance at the two guards who lay unconscious on the ground.

'My name is Dr. Octavius,' the man introduced himself, smiling. 'And I am going to be your primary carer from here on out, Mr. Parker.'

'Octavius?' Peter asked, straining against the restraints. 'More like _octopus_ , because of your whole gimmick there...'

The man, Octavius, laughed. 'Charming,' he mused, stepping back from Peter. He waved a hand, and a mechanical arm unfolded behind him to retrieve something from somewhere that Peter couldn't see. 'You _are_ an interesting one. I've only heard stories of the amazing Spider-Man, but I'd never thought I would meet him in person.'

The sound of his superhero persona on this man's tongue sent shivers down Peter's back. Dread pooling in his bones, he asked curiously, 'How many of you know?' When Octavius gave him a questioning glance, Peter elaborated, 'That I'm Spider-Man. How many?'

'Oh, just me,' Octavius said. He looked to the side, his mechanical arm contracting as it dropped a pair of syringes in his hand – one clear and empty, the other filled with green liquid. Looking at the latter reminded Peter of the nurse at Midtown, who had reached into her case to grab the syringe filled with the same liquid inside. It made him think that the goblin's words were true, that these people _had_ been watching him for some time; it scared him to think they were able to trace him all the way back to Midtown and his home. A single mistake and they might have taken May, or Ned, or even Flash.

His Spider-Sense prickled as Octavius leaned down with the empty syringe and place the needle to a vein resting in the crook of Peter's elbow. Peter strained against his restraints, trying to pull back from Octavius but the man's mechanical arms unfolded again, claws snapping menacingly.

'I wouldn't do that if I were you,' Octavius hummed sadly, sympathy filling his eyes, glancing up at Peter. 'No one here knows you are Spider-Man, but they know your name. A wrong move and your loved ones will be placed on the radar.'

On the radar? _On the radar?_ They were already placed at risk the moment Peter was gone, the moment these people called Peter Parker _Spider-Man_ , his loved ones are already at risk. Knowing that because of him his friends and family might be harmed made his stomach churn.

Octavius took Peter's silence as a sign of compliancy, and with his mechanical arms still hanging in the air threateningly, he embedded the empty syringe into Peter's vein and withdrew blood. Scarlet liquid filled the syringe in a flash, and Octavius plucked out the tube and capped it, scribbling a name onto the sticker with a marker.

'We're filing this one away for now,' he said to Peter as he placed the tube onto a table behind him. He picked up the syringe with the green liquid and held it up like a trophy. 'And this one, we're going to administer...here.' He tapped the back of Peter's hand.

His Spider-Sense roared. 'What is that?' Peter asked, trying to keep his voice steady. 'What is— what are you going to do to me?'

'We have been working on this project for quite some time, now. Nine, ten years, perhaps,' Octavius said, reaching for Peter's hand. He sighed when Peter curled his fist and tried to twist his hand out of Octavius' grip. 'Hold still. Listen, we need to perfect the Formula, however we have not been able to find a stable solution for it. You, on the other hand, can help us achieve that.'

Peter was becoming desperate. 'Listen, man,' he said quietly, his words becoming his last act of desperation as he tried to appeal to Octavius' soft-mannered side. He pulled against his metal bonds, trying to sit upright as much as he could, which wasn't much, as he said, 'I honestly don't how I'm supposed to help you and your formula, but you can't do this. It's...illegal, immoral. You're hurting children. _Children_. Children that are _dying_ because of what you are doing. You're hurting their _families_. You can't just— you can stop. You _have_ to stop, you have to put an end to this, Octavius. Please, just...'

_Please let me go, please let me go so I can bring justice back to your doorstep and avenge those you've hurt._

_Mack. Kitty. Just let me go._

Octavius just pursed his lips, his eyebrows furrowed in thought. He sighed. 'Listen, Peter,' he said in a soft voice, 'I can understand where you're coming from. I can see that, and I myself am affected by every death, as well. But I am working on stabilising the Formula to _prevent lives_ from being taken. And I haven't been able to do that...until now. Peter, you might be the piece in saving these children.'

Peter hated how effortlessly Octavius had managed to turn the conversation backwards. Instead of trying to guilt-trip the man, Octavius had quickly turned the guilt into eating Peter from the inside. If Peter should ever refuse to comply, he would be putting risk to more children like him. They would all be dead once these people had gone through him.

'What if I can't help you?' asked Peter, already dreading the answer. 'What if the results you get from me aren't satisfactory?'

'I have a family of my own, Mr. Parker,' Octavius said as he leaned down. 'Even if you aren't able to give me what I want, I still want to be able to provide for them, so if this is what I have to do to ensure it, then so be it.' He shrugged. 'Even if it means hurting the children to reach the endgame.'

With that, he jabbed the syringe into Peter's hand and flushed the green liquid down into his veins. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone excited for Doctor Octopus in Spider-Man 3??? 


	9. Nothing But Ash

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What are you doing here? No, stop. Go to youtube, go watch watch the trailer for "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier" and cry over Bucky and Sam's chemistry. Go watch the trailer for "What If...?" and cry over that otherworldly animation. Go watch the trailer for "Loki" and cry over his mischievous non-dead adventures. GO, GO WATCH THOSE TRAI---

* * *

— _CHAPTER NINE_ —  
_NOTHING BUT ASHES_

_'NORMAN OSBORN!'_ Tony hollered as he crashed into the lobby of Oscorp Tower, glass shattering and metal creaking. His suit rippled like water, nanotech shifting in waves, to deflect smaller particles, a starburst of shards and metal and blazing blue light as he landed roughly on the tiled floors, cracking the smooth ground beneath him.

People screamed at the sight of Iron Man, murderous and cloaked in scarlet, trudging towards them. Security guards shouted and flashed up their guns, their barrels pointed straight at him. Tony couldn't care less. Tony _didn't_ care less. All that ran through his mind was _Peter is here, he's in this building, Osborn has him, he's going to hurt him._

The lobby of Oscorp Tower was simplistic – simple white floors, simply green potted plants, simple brown tables and chairs, simple _everything_. Even the people looked simple – they didn't wear anything extravagant, other than their normal clothes hidden under their white lab coats. Their expressions, however, were far from simple; they were twisted with fear.

One man shuffled between security and up to Tony, figure hunched in fright as he stuttered, 'U-Um, Mr. Stark? That you?'

' _Do you see any other people flying in Iron Man suits lately?'_ Tony asked, his voice flat and knife-sharp through his helmet. He only hoped the faceplate could express the rage boiling in his blood.

The man cowered, his bald head reflecting the light from the windows. 'I-I-I see,' he said, voice wavering. 'Why don't— why don't you just, just, step out of the suit—'

' _Where is Norman Osborn?'_ Tony asked him, gauntleted fingers curling. ' _Where is he?'_

'Mr. Osborn?' The man looked up in fear and confusion. 'He's— he's going out today. Has some conference downtown, I think.'

' _Where?'_ Tony pressed. He took a step forward, and security cocked and loaded their guns, yelling at him to take a step back. Tony didn't. ' _Tell him to get back here, I'm not moving until he gets his self-absorbed face into his own damn building so we can have a talk like normal businessmen.'_

There were phones out, the flashlights flickering as they recorded Iron Man throw petty remarks. People were murmuring all around him – _what does he want? Why is Iron Man here? The Accords must have made him snap._ Their words were curious, but Tony tried to not let them faze him. He was here for one thing, and one thing only.

It was a standoff, a silence so painfully thick it was bound to choke people. So quiet a feather could be heard fluttering in the breeze. Quietly, Tony whispered to his suit, ' _Fri, get me a scan of the building's floor plans. Find that room, now.'_

' _On it, Boss,'_ F.R.I.D.A.Y. replied just as quietly. She set to work quickly, running through scans of every room on the forty-second floor, as they had previously found, on side of the HUD as Tony stood rigidly in the centre of the lobby. He could hear someone make a call to Osborn himself from the front desk, only to put it down and look at it with worry a moment later.

It only took a minute when suddenly the crowd of people parted. Tony raised his head a little, the suit's HUD zooming in on the person who strode towards him.

Norman Osborn walked in with an air of formality and purpose. His coppery hair was smoothed over and gave off a metallic sheen that seemed to make his blue eyes glow. He was dressed in an infuriatingly simple blue plaid shirt with dark navy pants, hands tucked into the front pockets as he stood in front of the Iron Man suit.

And like Tony himself, there was a look of anger burning in his gaze.

'Tony,' Osborn said slowly, 'what are you doing here?'

Tony gnashed his teeth as he growled back, ' _Just wanted to catch up with my old pal is all.'_

'You could have called, or made an appointment.'

' _You could actually just own up to the things you've done.'_

Osborn blinked. 'Are we seriously doing this again? What makes you think I'm going to apologise for "stealing" your Nitramene?' he demanded, voice raising as he stepped closer. 'What gives you the authority to barge into _my company_ and mock me? You really haven't changed, Tony; you're still living in your own delusional world—'

Tony had had enough. He flicked out his hands, and the Mark L unravelled like clockwork. Tony stepped out of the suit and onto the cracked tiled ground, his arc reactor clipped to his chest and burning, and brought his fist against Osborn's face. With a satisfying _thwack_ , Osborn stumbled back as Tony spat at him, 'My own delusional world? Oh, shut _up_ , Norman, and admit that you're a lying, cruel son of a—!'

The crowd bristled with tense unease. The chief of security stepped forward, shouting, 'Tony Stark, disable your suit, raise your hands and get on the—'

'It's alright, boys,' Osborn groaned as he held his jaw, glaring heatedly at Tony. His light-skinned face was marred by a red mark on his cheek. 'It's alright, I'll handle this.'

Hesitantly, the guards stepped back, but their guns were still raised.

'I'll ask you again,' Osborn said, this time all traces of formality disappearing. 'Why are you here, Stark?'

Seething, Tony hissed, 'I know what you've been doing, _Osborn_. You've been kidnapping children off the streets. You have been taking them and _experimenting_ on them for whatever sick reason you deemed worthy. And in this very tower is my...is a child, so you better take me to him or I'll just fly through every floor myself.'

The lobby exploded into whispers, fingers pointing as the people tried to makes sense of what Tony was trying to tell them. Osborn frowned, the anger having suddenly melted. 'What?' he asked.

'Cut the act!' Tony snapped, shoving himself into Osborn's face and grabbing his shirt in fistfuls. The light of the arc reactor emphasised the lines on Osborn's skin. 'I saw that video – the one on Katherine Pryde. The video was released three days ago, and I found her this morning.'

Osborn was still playing dumb, and he muttered, 'Wait, what the hell are you going on about, Tony? Kidnapping? Experimenting?'

'Don't lie to me!' Tony could feel his heartbeat stutter, because no, Osborn could not just play this off as some mere coincidence. 'No, you—there's a room in this building and it matches the exact same room as the one in the video. The _exact same_ , with the tables and a medical bed and that stupid lamp in the ceiling! And you've been pumping these innocent children with _drugs_ and crap and— and—'

'Tony, stop! Since when did I start kidnapping _children?'_ And then Tony could see it – the pure confusion and doubt in Osborn's eyes. There was also something akin to sadness, too. 'I— why would I do that? I had a son, Tony, I...but why would you think I would...'

Osborn's whole posture sagged with doubt. 'Tony, what's going _on?'_

There was rage simmering in his veins, every instinct wanting to punch something and to burn it to the ground until there was nothing but ashes, but Tony forced himself to say, 'What's going on is that children in New York have been kidnapped and experimented upon and are _dying_ with their limbs missing, Osborn. No child is safe. That room in your tower is the exact same as the one. _I want to see it._ I can see through you and your pathetic lies and...'

_What if Peter is not there?_

Tony faltered, his fists clenched. He squeezed his eyes shut and let out a shaky breath.

'I'm going to get to that room, whether you try to stop me or not,' he growled, raising a hand. The Mark L responded, stepping forward and raising its own gauntleted fist to grasp Tony's. It disintegrated upon touch, crawled along Tony's arm and onto his chest, filing away into the arc reactor that still hummed with power. As the suit vanished, Tony glared at the security guards around him when Osborn spoke up.

'Clear out, people,' he called, his deep voice echoing throughout the lobby once, twice. 'Clear out. I'll show what Mr. Stark here desires. I'll be fine; leave us.'

A few tense minutes later, the guards had backed away, and the people, both visitors and workers, had returned to their jobs. Osborn had steered the two of them to the back of the lobby, where a pair of elevators sat dormant. Tony watched Osborn press a few buttons, and the elevator doors swung open. Osborn filed inside, calling Tony forward. Heart beating quickly, Tony followed. The doors closed and Osborn gestured towards the buttons labelling the floors; Tony moved forward and pressed the button to Floor 42 and the elevator began moving upward.

The elevator had only slid past the twenty-eighth floor when Osborn asked quietly, 'This is about your intern, isn't it?'

_Shut up, you heartless excuse of a human._

Tony didn't reply.

'I'm sorry, Tony,' Osborn said quietly, sounding so genuine that it took everything in Tony to not smash him to the ground. 'He shouldn't have to go through anything like this.'

'Shut up,' Tony hissed, hackles rising at Osborn's soft voice. Osborn made no attempt to continue conversation.

A minute passed and they reached the empty space of Level 42. Tony stepped out quickly as soon as the doors retracted, his suit immediately forming over him as Osborn trailed silently behind him.

Tony didn't need to even ask F.R.I.D.A.Y.; she simply brought up the floor plan for Level 42 in the HUD, highlighting the room in dark red. Tony trudged forward, each footstep clanking like the hammer slamming against the anvil in a forge. Each step brought him closer to the room, which grew in size.

 _Please, Pete, tell me you're in there,_ Tony thought. _You better be in there, you better be safe._

He wished he received an answer.

And suddenly, Tony was upon the room. The door was just within arm's reach. He reached out shoved at the door, popping it off its hinges as it was flung back from the force. The metal door landed on the ground with a loud _CLANG_.

Tony's eyes flicked up, scanning the room—

—only to find it silent.

His heart froze as Tony's eyes swept the room, his gaze landing on the absolute _emptiness_ that filled the room. It was a semicircle-shaped room, there was a table along its curved wall, but there were no beakers, no papers, no working overhead lamp, no medical bed, no apparatus holding tweezers and scalpels, no blood or the stench of sickness and death.

There was _nothing_.

Tony whispered something to F.R.I.D.A.Y., he couldn't remember what he had said, but all F.R.I.D.A.Y. said was that there was no other access to the room other than the doorway in which he was standing it, that there were no traces of any biological materials, that this room had been empty for _two years_.

_'Where is everything?'_

Tony's voice was distant in the helmet, scratchy. Faint, like the radio.

Osborn's shadow peeked over Tony's shoulder. 'We moved all our equipment to the other floors,' Osborn answered. 'There was a gas leak in the nearby labs, and it flooded the ventilation system on this floor; we had to clear out and let the gas dissipate itself.'

' _But...no, that can't be right,'_ Tony said. ' _No, no, you just cleared the floor out recently, you knew we were onto you—'_

'You've been spying on me?' asked Osborn, raising a sculpted eyebrow.

' _Where is he?'_ demanded Tony, turning sharply to Osborn. The arc reactor beat alongside his heart. ' _God damn it, Norman, where is he? Where is the room? Are you— is it on another floor? It has to be!'_

' _Boss,'_ F.R.I.D.A.Y. said softly in his ear, ' _there is no other room. This is the only one of its kind in the building and the entire city.'_

 _'No...'_ But there were no more words.

Osborn glanced sadly at Tony, as if he truly felt pain in his soulless heart. 'I'm sorry, Tony,' he said, scratching at his neck as if it meant something. 'I'm so sorry.'

Tony couldn't remember when the suit had retracted into his arc reactor, leaving him cold and insecure. He couldn't remember when he became so numb to the point Osborn had placed an arm around him and directed him back towards the elevator, pressing the buttons to take them back to the ground.

He couldn't remember when he was left standing in the street, Osborn apologising once more before leaving.

Tony just felt...nothing.

It was then Tony realised that those days, only three days scouring the Internet and through government files and through private documents, had been spent for nothing. If Peter had never been in the city all that time, then only God knew where he had been taken.

It occurred to him that Peter was really, truly, undoubtedly missing.

Peter really was missing now.

Tony couldn't remember the last time he prayed for someone to come back.

* * *

_THREE WEEKS LATER_

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \---LER NOW! Wait, why are you still here?? WATCH THE TRAILERS AND CRY OVER THEM  
> (after you have cried over this, of course, maybe)


	10. It Had Been Whispered

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Those three days of waiting symbolise the three weeks that have passed. Mwahahahaah. And because you watch Marvel movies, I think it's safe to say that our Third Act starts off with a blast of Peter's POV

* * *

— _CHAPTER TEN_ —  
_IT HAD BEEN WHISPERED_

_Peter didn’t know how long he’d been here._

_He had been_ _walking into_ _his room at the Compound, chatting animatedly with Ned, who looked around his room with wide eyes._ _May_ _was trailing behind them,_ _this_ _being her first time at the Compound. In her hands she held a_ _book whose title was blurred_ _; nowadays May rarely read anymore, though Peter never knew why she had stopped_ _._

 _Ned, meanwhile, was flapping his hands as he sunk to his knees on the maroon rug by Peter’s bed. He pointed at the Lego set, whisper-shouting, ‘Oh my God_ _, when did you get the Millennium Falcon set?’_

_Peter shrugged; he wasn’t entirely sure, to be honest, and only knew that it had been in his room for some time before he realised that he was walking over it. ‘Dunno, man,’ Peter admitted, ‘but it looks so dope.’_

_‘It better be,’ a voice said. Peter turned to see Mr. Stark standing by the doorway, his arms folded over his chest. His signature glasses were tucked into the neckline of his shirt. ‘I paid good money for it; it better be of acceptable quality or I’ll just sue the company.’_

_While Ned gasped about how Mr. Stark could even think of such things, Peter asked, ‘Can you do that?’_

_‘What haven’t I done?’ Mr. Stark replied casually, grinning. He then waved a hand in dismissal, walking away from the room as he called, ‘Have fun, fellas.’_

_The three them chorused some kind of agreement, and Peter and Ned worked together to pour the Lego pieces onto the ground as May just smiled and sat on the edge of Peter’s bed, reading. Ned was halfway through examining the different bricks and pieces of the set when he suddenly frowned and said, ‘Huh, that’s funny. The Han Solo figurine is missing.’_

_Peter peeked over Ned’s shoulder only to see he was right: no Han Solo figurine whatsoever. ‘Weird,’ Peter agreed, but nevertheless he bent to crawl onto all fours to help Ned look for it. May yelped when Peter accidentally bumped into her leg. Peter groped around under the bed, hoping with his adhesiveness he would latch onto something. His fingers brushed against a small toy with details on them and Peter pulled his hand back. He was pleased to see it was the Han Solo figurine smiling up at him._

_‘Found it,’ Peter said to Ned, who was probably waiting impatiently. Peter grinned excitedly, expecting to see the look of happiness on his friend’s face._

_What Peter didn’t expect was the empty space beside him. Ned was gone, the only traces of him ever being there was the crinkling of the rug and the wisps of dust in the air; it smelled like ash._

_‘Where'd he go?’ Peter mumbled glancing around his room, then getting up and looking down the hallways to see where Ned might have wandered off to. He turned back to look at May, who glanced at him with wide brown eyes._

_‘I don’t know,’ she said, closing the book and placing it in her lap as she leaned back on Peter’s bed. Her long brown hair hung around her shoulders. ‘I didn’t see him get up and go. Just disappeared right under our noses.’_

_‘That’s easy for you to say,’ Peter replied. ‘Your nose was buried in that book.’_

_May laughed at Peter, her smile wide. ‘Wow,’ she said, ‘look at you go with bite in your tone.’_

_Peter didn’t have time to think of what she might have meant when May popped out of existence._

_Just like that, one moment she was there and the next...gone. That same smell of smoke and dust lingering at where she sat. Only the book was what remained of May, and only then was Peter able to discern its title, that being the aptly named_ Songs for the Missing _._

_There was anxiety pooling into Peter’s limbs, making them hurt right down to his bones as he called, ‘May? Ned? Where are you guys?’_

_There was no answer. The hallways leading to the living quarters were quiet and dark, and then Peter realised he didn’t know what time it was; the clock in his room was still, frozen and silent._

_Chewing his lip, Peter stepped into the hallway and padded down into the darkness. There was an unpleasant weight pressed behind his ears as if the air pressure had suddenly dropped. His breath fogged in long streams of translucent clouds. Something shifted in Peter’s chest, as if his heart had skipped a beat or two._

_The further Peter walked the more he realised how scarce life had become. He had made it to the living room and saw how all the potted plants had withered and dried. The garden was dark and covered with ice, the windows swallowed by frost. The adjacent kitchen was reigned by rust, the ugly copper stains eating away at utensils and tabletops. Everything was devoid of life, silent and dead and_ alone _._

_His heart clenched at the thought of being alone in this vast landscape of sprawling rooms and winding corridors. Peter thought every turn he took would send him further into the maze, send him on a trail that would isolate him more and more, becoming lost in a sea of things of familiar things that had been doused in unfamiliarity. Everything had been sucked into silence, grating at every nerve and pulling on every sense._

_Peter wasn’t sure what prompted him to start shouting. He just yelled, hollered, bellowed, trying to draw attention because the emptiness of all life was wearing at him, the absence of Ned and May and_ Mr. Stark where are you I’m here where are you _was painful in his heart and mind. The sheer isolation was sandpaper against his skin, rubbing him raw when every corridor Peter took was just as empty as the last one, every room as silent as the previous one._

_Like everything had been taken. Had been from stolen from him._

_That revelation alone was enough for all the air to be sucked out of Peter’s lungs._

That revelation alone was enough for Peter to wake up and curl over the bed and try to vomit into the bucket conveniently placed on the ground.

His tense muscles shuddered as he dry-heaved, his empty stomach trying to dislodge the big chunk of nothing as Peter sagged against the medical bed, skin hot and sticky with sweat. His mind felt rotten and foggy, the effects of a migraine slowly retreating from his head. Dazedly, Peter blinked rapidly as he tried to get his eyes to focus on one thing at a time: the glaring light overhead, the glint of the restraints holding him to the medical bed, the door to the room he was strapped in opening with a figure in the doorway.

Peter’s eyes sluggishly followed Octavius’ movements as he crossed the room, moving to stand by Peter’s side in only a few strides. The scientist brandished an infrared thermometer and held it by Peter’s forehead.

‘You’ve woken up a lot earlier than I expected,’ Octavius mused, pressing a few buttons on the thermometer. Peter tried to focus his gaze on that but going cross-eyed made another wave of dizziness wash over him. Instead, he glanced at the silver harness still wrapped around Octavius’ middle; the robotic arms showed up from time to time, never often, and mostly during the times when Peter decided to get a little rough.

The metallic arms usually won all the time.

Peter closed his eyes just as the thermometer beeped, and Octavius sighed as he glanced at the numbers.

‘That’s the fifth time your body has actively rejected the Formula,’ Octavius noted, just like the other previous four times. ‘It seems as if your fever has broken, though.’

‘Isn’t that a delight,’ Peter managed, heat in his tone. Shivers wracked his body, the bed cold beneath his burning skin.

Octavius ignored him, backing away to write in the notepad he had brought with him. The pen scratched against the paper like sharpened talons dragged down a wall. ‘AF #15’s immune system has rejected the Oz Formula for the fifth consecutive time,’ Octavius muttered under his breath as he wrote, not quietly enough for his voice to go unnoticed by Peter’s hearing. ‘Formula was administered in AF #15’s left shoulder six hours prior. A fever developed; lapse of consciousness occurred.’ He glanced at Peter, then murmured, ‘As of yet there are no signs of blood poisoning.’

 _As of yet_. He said it like it was bound to happen. Peter could only ponder on what that meant. Did it mean that Octavius, and by extension the goblin, _wanted_ children to die from radiation and blood poisoning? Or did they want to heal them from it? These were the thoughts that circled Peter for…who knows how long. They didn’t exactly install clocks or add calendars inside this facility.

‘…his blood can be synthesised,’ Octavius finally said. He signed his signature at the bottom, then looked at Peter, his eyes warping slightly from the glasses he wore as he smiled. ‘Well, Mr. Parker, I just need to grab a sample from you and then I believe you will be dismissed.’

 _Not like I have a choice,_ Peter thought as Octavius ducked out of view for a moment. He craned his neck to see where had gone, and his Spider-Sense wriggled just as Octavius grabbed a few locks of his greasy hair and cut them off with an unceremonious _snip_.

Peter’s head fell back against the bed, his Spider-Sense still writhing, the mutant control device a thick lump of metal pressed into his skin. He watched Octavius slip the clumps of hair into a bag and seal it shut, then he reached out with one hand. A metallic arm unfolded from his harness, stretching out to reach across the entirety of the room and press a button in the wall with one elongated claw.

The restraints over his arms and legs popped open with a metallic click, and like always Peter thought of making a mad dash to the door and smashing it down and running away, but as always Octavius’ arms sprout out of his harness and whir warningly in Peter’s face, threatening him, almost _daring_ him to try.

Out of the restraints, and in an instant Octavius snapped the cuffs over Peter’s arms, locking them tightly. Peter was then roughly shoved out of the room’s doors by the metallic arms, the guards waiting outside patiently. Like the other four times, the guards more or less hauled Peter back through the corridors, dragging him past countless rooms, always dragging him past the communications room. The lights inside always called to Peter, and he wanted nothing more than to just rip himself out of the guards’ arms and run for it.

But the mutant control device on his neck hummed, and the general fear that bubbled from the worry over his friends and family pulled him back a little.

Not to mention the new arrivals, of course; the goblin made sure to dangle their safety on a single thread should Peter ever go against him.

Everything dear to him seemed to be made of glass at this point; Peter just wanted something concrete to rely on.

_Mr. Stark, where are you? I’m trying to get out, I’m trying, but I can’t._

Peter didn’t know how long he’d been here.

The guards unlocked his cell and abruptly shoved him inside, chuckling as they did so. Peter balanced on his feet as he eyed the guards flicking a hand towards the control panel; the wall of glass reappeared, locking him inside.

With a sigh, Peter sat down on the small slab in the cell that substituted for a bed, sagging against the wall as another round of shivers flooded his body. The skin on the sides of chest stretched nd ached, having been cut some time ago. The cold was uncomfortable against his skin, an unparallel pain that numbed everything because apparently the only thing Octavius’ Formula did was supposedly disable the one thing Peter actually cared about: thermoregulation. His hormones just stopped working altogether, amplifying that one specific arachnid gene.

Now, every day, he would sit in this stupid room freezing his stupid butt while his body tried to make up for the loss of heat by shivering every five seconds. The green clothes, scratchy but thick, didn’t insulate enough heat. The cuffs, despite being made of adamantium, didn’t store heat even if Peter tried to curl around it. It wasn’t pleasant, and Peter…

…he would have said that he would never want to experience this again, but he didn’t know if there _was_ going to be a second time.

There was a scraping sound from Peter’s right, and he looked up to the tiny window set into the wall, the room Kitty had once been in. A bright face, younger and chipper, beamed back at him.

 _Angelica Jones_ , she had been quick to introduce when she first arrived. _But most people just call me Angel._

‘Hey-a, Pete,’ Angelica said, blue eyes twinkling. Her hair was a bright orange, like a lava flow. ‘Bobby’s been talking about you _nonstop._ I tried to get him onto a different topic, but he’s simply too in love with you.’

Peter grinned at her, hearing the groan from the cell on Peter’s left. From that window Peter could see the face of one tired Bobby Drake, his face scrunched in annoyance at Angelica’s words. ‘Shut _up_ , Angel,’ he snapped, brown hair falling over his eyes. ‘I know I said I’m gay, but I’m not _in love_ with Peter. He’s too old for me.’

‘I am _not_ old,’ Peter sniped back, teeth chattering. ‘I’m only two years older than you.’

‘Older. Base word being _old_. My point has been proven. Moving on.’

Angelica snickered at their exchange as Peter hunched in on himself, trying to suppress his body from shuddering; he winced when the cuts on his chest throbbed. They would have healed in a day or two, but whatever this organisation was hadn’t fed him properly over the last few days (weeks?); the lack of nutrition had lowered his healing factor’s efficiency, so mostly the cuts and skin abrasions remained, but it was better than having to die from poisoning, wasn’t it? It was what Peter told himself, anyway.

Bobby rested his head against the window, watching Peter hiss slightly. ‘You okay, man?’ Bobby asked after a moment.

‘Oh? Ah, yeah, I’m fine,’ Peter quickly said as he straightened. ‘I’m all good, Bobby.’

‘Did they do anything to you?’

‘Aside from the usual Formula injections? Nope, not today.’

Bobby just looked at him with sad eyes.

Their silence eventually led to them discussing about mundane topics. Bobby and Angelica, having gone to the same school, quizzed each other and wondered what their teacher would be explaining to their class; Peter would occasionally correct them if they had gotten some information wrong.

This led to the birth of a new game that stretched on what seemed to be hours: “How Much Does Peter Know?”, coined by Angelica. Peter would answer any of the questions the two would ask him, ranging from pop culture to English class to why the Sokovia Accords were even put in place.

‘They were created to monitor the actions of superpowered individuals,’ Peter said, remembering how Mr. Stark had explained it to him in depth. ‘Governments from multiple countries decided that with a superhero team like the Avengers travelling to various places without notifying their country and engaging in catastrophic events that there should be a system, or some legal control over how they operate.’

‘Woah,’ Bobby said, nodding. ‘Do you think we would be targeted by the government?’

Peter frowned. ‘How so?’

‘Well, the people here call us _mutants_. Like we have something that others don’t. I mean, yeah, I can freeze things and make icicles and stuff, but I couldn’t do that before.’

Thinking, Peter shrugged. ‘I don’t think this is a government organisation,’ he said slowly. ‘The government wouldn’t allow kids to be kidnapped—’ _And tortured to death_ ‘—so whoever has us has kept us hidden from the authorities, and by extension the Accords. We are kind of…invisible at the moment, yeah.’

‘Neat,’ said Angelica. She craned her head slightly to look at Peter and piped up, ‘I have a question. Do you know any other heroes other than Captain America who haven’t signed?’

 _Spider-Man hasn’t signed._ Peter bit his lip, unsure of whether he should answer or not when his Spider-Sense prickled. His head snapped up, and he glared at the guards who stood outside the glass wall. Even from beneath their helmets, Peter could feel the heat from their stares.

‘Pete?’ called Angelica. ‘Peter, are they back?’

_Are the guards back?_

‘Yep,’ Peter said, enunciating the _p_ at the end. ‘Yeah, they’re here. For me.’

‘But you just _got back,’_ Bobby said, his voice harsh as he moved towards the front of his own cell, disappearing from view as he vented his worry and frustration.

The glass wall fell away, and Peter straightened to his feet, chills racing up and down his spine.

‘Pete, you can’t go,’ Angelica said softly.

 _If I had that choice, I would be beating the hell out of these guys, but your lives are on the line. The lives of my family and friends are on the line_.

Peter just shrugged and walked out of the cell. One guard, being impatient, pushed at him to hurry up. It was only then Peter realised that the chills lingering on his back weren’t from the cold, but from his Spider-Sense dreading for the events that were to come.

* * *

He was taken down a different path. The way to the room Octavius always strapped him down in was two turns to the right after a turn to the left, but the guards had taken him straight down a corridor – possibly the main path, judging from how wide the corridor was and how it seemed to connect with different branches of the facility. The lights burned yellow, casting a green glow against the ugly grey walls. At the very end of the corridor was a door.

It was painted mauve.

His Spider-Sense recoiled with disgust as Peter remembered that particular large vein in Kitty’s neck, from the poison that was trapped in her body as Octavius or some other scientist had injected her with that Formula. He remembered the colour of that vein, pulsing with each beat of her heart, each beat sending her closer to Death’s doorstep.

Peter decided he would hate the colour mauve in the days to come.

The guards pulled him up in front of the door. One of them leaned forward and knocked on the door; a lock clicked, and a quiet voice said, ‘Come in.’

Peter’s Spider-Sense quivered. He knew that voice.

The guards pushed the door open, dragging Peter inside.

It was a lavish office, tinted a deep blood-red from the dark walls and the soft golden lamps in the far corners of the room. Two large potted plants sat by the plants, their natural green somehow bleeding into a sick grey colour from the lighting. In the middle of the room sat a mahogany desk and a black leather chair, both clean and free of dust.

And in that chair, dressed in a dark three-piece suit, sat the goblin, still smiling behind his emerald mask.

Peter’s hackles rose as he eyed the man, the way the horns curled and the way the eyes glittered like amber. The guards pushed Peter just in front of the desk, their hands immediately gripping their firearms in warning.

Barely restraining an eyeroll, Peter’s attention was snagged back to the goblin when the man leaned over the desk, folding his arms as he seemed to study Peter. The air felt like lead; heavy and thick, dark and silent. It was like lightning, setting every hair on Peter’s body to stand on end from alertness.

And then tension leaked out from the goblin’s posture, and Peter could see the smile that emanated even from behind the mask. ‘Hello again, my boy,’ the goblin said, voice ecstatic. ‘It is good to see you again after…such a long, long time.’

Peter shivered once more, but didn’t reply. He _couldn’t_ reply; what was there to say?

The goblin appeared to not have minded the silence as he continued, ‘You might be wondering why you are here. None of the other children made it this far, but…I wanted to congratulate you, and to thank you for cooperating with us so well these past few days.’

Peter’s gut twisted. ‘What do you mean _cooperate?’_ he hissed at the goblin, feeling the phantom talons of the mutant control device dig deeper into his flesh. ‘People don’t _cooperate_ when you kidnap and force them to do things without their consent.’

The goblin merely shrugged, unfazed by Peter’s words. ‘It depends on how you look at it,’ the goblin replied, mask’s scales glittering. ‘I thought I would like to let you know of our endeavours on this remarkable project. You see, your blood…it is the work of God, my young boy! It is a thing of beauty, a beautiful product of science and a miracle.’

The goblin’s words were rushed and fevered with such joy Peter was wondering why he was even telling him this. His Spider-Sense grew restless from the way the goblin drew joy in something as personal as Peter’s _blood_.

‘We worked hard, Peter, on determining what made Spider-Man,’ the goblin continued. ‘We tried to uncover the catalyst that made your powers glow like the sun. You were the key in making all of this possible, no matter how many times we had failed. And now…’ The mask tipped downward slightly, giving its already unsettling appearance and even more sinister look ‘…the Oz Formula is complete. Your blood has enabled us to create a perfect batch fit for use.’

Peter’s eyes widened. ‘You fixed it?’ His voice sounded quiet, like it had been whispered from the bottom of a canyon. ‘You— you— what are you going to do with it? What are you going to do?’

‘Make an army, of course!’ the goblin cackled, throwing his arms into the air in glee. ‘The Formula was to create an army of super soldiers! HYDRA had come close, not before they lost their research; they were stuck with that dreadful Winter Soldier fellow. But us? We took their success and made it _better_ , all thanks to you, Peter Parker.’

There was a horrible emotion churning deep inside Peter’s chest, like the destructive guilt had come to life like some twisted nightmare and was sucking every feeling out of him as if it were a parasite. All that was left was a bitter rage that festered in an empty shell like a raw wound. ‘You’re making an _army?’_ Peter demanded, his voice, small and quiet mere seconds ago, now roaring like thunder. ‘You’re making an army?! For what? For world domination? You think it’s a good idea to endanger the lives of children, and now billions of people simply because you think you can beat HYDRA at its own game?! What is _wrong_ with you?!’

The goblin had gone silent, staring at Peter as if he had grown a pair of horns himself. His hands twitched, his pale fingers lightly pressing something against the desk’s surface, and Peter’s Spider-Sense flared.

The mutant control device sparked to life, washing his nerves with magma and cutting off any attempt to cry out. As he sunk to his knees, the cuffs clanking heavily to the ground like an anchor, Peter’s mind went blank when he realised, amidst the ocean of pain that he was drowning in, that there was no air in his lungs. He felt like he was a burning ember, blazing like fire but floating away in a harsh breeze.

The device suddenly fell silent, the neurotoxin still heavy and thick in Peter’s veins but having lost its painful bite; all that was left was a lingering sting that made Peter’s muscles quiver and freeze up, every shiver in his body an avalanche against his senses.

As he panted, the goblin just watched him with sick fascination. He watched as one of the guards hauled Peter to his feet and shoved him against the desk, the edge digging into his chest and rubbing against the cuts in his skin. The goblin continued to watch as he reached into one of the many drawers in his desk, pulling out a small object in between his fingers; Peter’s eyes widened when he realised what it was.

It was a syringe, long and narrow, its needle unbelievably thin. Inside the syringe was a liquid coloured a sickening bright green, edged in red.

The goblin rolled up his sleeve, exposing pale skin in the crook of his elbow. He leaned forward, over the desk, moving in so close that the horns brushed Peter’s hair. From behind the ornate mask, the goblin whispered, ‘The first batch,’ as he inserted the needle into his flesh without even looking. The syringe emptied in seconds.

The effects were immediate. The goblin wheezed and choked, yanking the syringe out of his arm with a pained grunt. A bead of red blood trickled down from the puncture in his skin as the goblin hunched over his desk, his fists clenching and unclenching. When the goblin howled, Peter realised what he was seeing could have been worse than any nightmare he had envisioned.

The goblin straightened to his feet, but he was something much _more_. He looked taller, his chest broader, his arms lined with muscles that bulged under the suit that suddenly seemed too small for him.

Spider-Sense suddenly shrieking, Peter tried to push against the guard and to back away, _back away,_ but the mutant control device’s neurotoxin still wracked his body, and because the goblin’s hand lashed out and grabbed Peter by the throat, cutting off his airway with inhuman speed.

_Inhuman speed._

With wide eyes, Peter could feel himself being lifted into the air, the goblin’s grip over his neck tight and agonising. The goblin stared back at him, the mask’s eyes seemingly glowing like lava. There was a smile behind the mask, Peter could feel the manic energy behind it wash of over his pain-filled body and pull at his Spider-Sense like needles.

‘I have only you to thank, Spider-Man,’ the goblin said, his voice low and laced with what could only be pure insanity as he watched Peter try to inhale air that couldn’t pass between his teeth. ‘I hope we will enjoy our next visit sometime in the future.’

With that, the goblin dropped Peter to the ground. Neurotoxin still flooding his nerves, Peter could only stumble before he fell backwards. The guards caught him before he hit the ground in a mess of uncoordinated limbs, and they pulled him out of the room when the goblin growled, ‘Now leave.’

They were back in the corridors in seconds, the whole world passing in a slow blur. Every sound was amplified in Peter’s eyes, so there was no way Peter’s could have missed the whispers between the guards that held him as they murmured, ‘The boss has gone crazy. That’s some next level horror right there.’

Peter couldn’t agree more.

As he was once again dumped into his cell, Peter couldn’t help but think about Kitty.

‘Peter?’ came Bobby’s quiet voice as he pressed himself against the window. ‘Peter?’

‘He doesn’t look so good,’ Angelica replied softly. ‘I think they did something bad.’

‘Yeah, no kidding.’

Peter couldn’t pay attention to them, their words simply a jumble of sounds in his brain. The only that shone brightly was Katherine Pryde, and the family she wanted to escape to, to leave this hellhole and the horrible things that were done to her. And not only Kitty, but Mack Hollister. Tandy Bowen. The other five children. All dead because Peter didn’t do enough to save even one.

All dead because the Goblin wanted Spider-Man from the very beginning.

From the very beginning.

Peter suppressed a shudder. He inhaled sharply and blinked his eyes quickly. Tried to stop the tears from falling.

Those children’s deaths were on him, and Peter couldn’t— _wouldn’t_ be able to stand to see another one die in place of him. He wouldn’t be able to stand to see another person harmed in the name of Peter Parker, of Spider-Man.

 _No one dies_ , Peter thought, fire burning through the fog in his mind as he glanced at the two faces of Angelica and Bobby, two innocent children stolen from their lives and placed into a fight that was never theirs. _No one dies. Not now, and never again._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "No one dies". And this is why Spider-Man is the greatest hero to have ever been created. In this essay, I--


	11. A Slow Montage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This a self explanatory chapter

* * *

— _CHAPTER ELEVEN_ —  
_A SLOW MONTAGE_

The first week had passed in silence.

Tony had stepped out of the sedan Happy had drove him in and glanced up at the quiet buildings in Forest Hills. Queens was known to generally be a quiet neighbourhood, but the wings of winter unfolding over it had the whole area to shrivel into pinpricks of warmth in homes, leaving the world outside to collect snowflakes and frost.

Forest Hills was no different. The streets had been mostly empty save for the few families that trudged outside in the cold to collect Christmas decorations and stock up for food. Tony himself had cloaked himself in a thick fleece coat, his hands having sunken into the deep pockets. He looked at the apartment complex nestled in the heart of Forest Hills and he thought.

He thought, _What do I say?_

He thought, _Is this what I’m even supposed to do?_

May Parker was similar to Pepper Potts in her own right – she was a strong and stubborn woman whose heart couldn’t be swayed even by the most devastating situations. She was headstrong and bold and positive, and she could learn to live with fire in her heart even when all she had wanted to do was bury herself and succumb to the coldness of the world around her.

But Pepper never had a child. Tony never did either. So that problem was, how would he handle and support a woman whose nephew had gone missing?

Tony hadn’t needed to support May; he hardly ever talked with her to begin with, only rarely these past few months. Happy did most of the talking, so it made sense to send him off to May, right?

(Tony had sent Happy to May to break the news. Happy had told him that May hadn’t even answered the door).

The way Tony, and May, had seen it was that Tony was responsible for Peter’s disappearance. There was no easy way to admit it; he had indirectly set up the perfect opportunity to allow people from an unauthorised organisation to yank Peter away from them with barely any noise.

He hoped all those days with Pepper had prepared him enough for what was in stall for him.

Silently, Tony had swept past the skeletal trees and the dark lamp posts and through the front doors, then crept up the stairs through the apartment, his shoes padding softly against the soft carpet, worn away slightly over the years. Muscle memory, even from so long ago, had guided Tony to the sixth floor of the apartment block. It had guided him to Apartment 6-16. It had him rapping his fist on the wooden door.

The hollow knock had sounded desolate in Tony’s ears.

Tony’s head had perked up slightly when he heard the sound of soft footsteps on the other side of the door. His heart stuttered when it opened; he handed expected it to.

May Parker looked lost as she opened the door, her gaze fuzzy and unfocused as she glanced at Tony. Her eyes were rimmed with red, the blotchiness only accentuated by the glasses she wore. Her hair, a strange mix between a lustrous brown and a fiery red, was tangled and messy and pulled into a haphazard ponytail. She seemed gaunt and tired, her entire body sagging against the doorframe.

And then she had opened her mouth and asked, ‘Stark?’

Not _Mr. Stark._ Not _Tony_. Just _Stark_.

Tony couldn’t blame her.

‘Hey, May,’ he had said softly; he felt as ragged as she looked. His own hair was left unbrushed and dishevelled, and he could feel his skin grow tight stiff when he tried to smile; every grin he gave was like a wound to the chest, a betrayal to Peter, because Peter was gone, the universe’s light was sucked away, there was no reason for him to be happy, was there?

‘How are you?’ asked Tony, trying to push past the guilt gnawing at his bones.

May’s face had twisted, her pale skin stretching over her cheeks as she snarled at Tony, ‘No. No, you don’t get to _do_ that.’ She opened the door wider as she stepped out and stood in front of Tony. She was shorter than him, a good three inches, but the fury in her eyes made her seem three inches taller. ‘You don’t get to come here and shower me with your _condolences.’_

‘May, I—’

‘You think it’s right for you to encourage my kid to pursue a life hunting down street thugs?’ May had spat at him. ‘You think it’s right for to come slinking back here to say _you’re sorry_ when you led him down a path he couldn’t come back from?’

There were tears in her eyes, eyes that continued to grow red and bloodshot. ‘That— that _double life_ of his has taken over him!’ May hissed. ‘He spends more of his time trying to impress the people, trying to impress you and trying to impress me instead of coming back home to take care of himself.’

Tony wanted to object, saying that the kid had never tried to impress anyone when May held up a hand. ‘As much as you spend all that time for him, you never really gave a damn about Peter, did you?’ May asked. ‘You never really looked at him and told him to stop when everything he’s been doing has been eating him up from the inside?’

All the words shrivelled up and dried in Tony’s throat. He blinked, his mouth hanging open slightly as if he were a fish gasping for air.

May gave him one more heartbroken, condescending look as she muttered, ‘Never should have let you into my house that day. That was the worst thing that could have ever happened to us.’

And then she slammed the door shut with a mighty slam, and Tony was locked out in the cold once more.

The second week had passed with whispers in the air.

Forest Hills had succumbed to the biting cold of mid-December, frost crawling along every surface with icy fingers. This time it had been Rhodey who had walked with Tony into Queens; they figured it would be a good idea to test the limits of Rhodey’s leg braces (on Tony’s part), and mostly because Tony was shying away from the idea of going to Queens alone (one of Rhodey’s observations).

Nevertheless, it was midday, cold and windy, when the two had made it back to the apartments. They walked into the lobby and Rhodey stood by the elevators, gently patting Tony on the shoulder. ‘Hey, Tones,’ Rhodey had told him softly, his gaze tired but wise, ‘it will be fine. She would have gotten through most of her anger by now. That’s just how grief works.’

Grief.

It had been two weeks of Peter’s absence, no sign of him or trace as to where he had gone, but it was clear as day that he could have been dead for two weeks. Grief was a natural response to the loss of a person.

Tony had hoped he hadn’t fallen into the endless spiral himself. And yet here he was.

He had climbed the stairs again, passing each floor and gazing at each one as he passed as if it were a slow montage of greyed and fuzzy images. He was back at Apartment 6-16 again, and before he could knock, he just pressed his head against the door, his face tilted downward so he could eye his shoes, the tops still wet and dripping from the ice melting. The cold of the door seeped into his skin as if his head was a sponge, feeding the headache that grew behind his eyes.

Grief was a horrible, horrible thing. It sucked and it chewed and it tore and it made one want to claw their own face off in an attempt to lessen the pain. But the pain never went away; it lingered like a scar, not fully healed and bleeding like an endless waterfall when touched by the softest and gentlest of hands.

Tony associated grief with the domino effect; one thing led to another, and another, and another. Sometimes it looped; sometimes it just stopped, and Tony would be stuck in Limbo, stuck in a glass box as the world around him moved on and on and on.

He was still sulking by the door when it disappeared without warning. Tony had barely caught himself as he looked into May’s rust-coloured eyes; they didn’t look so lost anymore.

Like before, she leaned on the doorway, her hand lingering on the doorknob. May had glanced up at Tony with an unrecognisable emotion in her eyes. She had clothed herself in thicker jackets, and she sniffed before she said quietly, ‘I’m sorry. For…you know, exploding.’

Tony had been quick to shake his head. He rubbed at his eyes as he grumbled, ‘No, no, you were right. Everything you said was…’

He didn’t even have the energy to continue, because it was the truth. He didn’t have anything more to say; he didn’t need to continue.

May had just gazed at him sadly. She let go of the door and pushed it wide open. Instead of pushing Tony away, she reached out and gripped his hands. Her fingers were icy, sending shivers up Tony’s arms. Closing the door, May had pulled him inside her apartment, her home, one that looked so grey and dull and lonely. The liveliness that only seemed to stick to the Parkers had vanished like the flickering flame of a candle.

May guided Tony to the lounge, pushing him into a seat on the sofa as she headed into the kitchen. She grabbed a pot, still steaming hot with whatever was inside it and set it on the coffee table by Tony’s feet; the warmth that radiated from it was blissful. May produced two cups, and she glanced at Tony again. The cool lighting of the world outside made her look old, much older than she already was.

Tony looked away.

‘Coffee?’ May asked quietly, lifting the pot and pouring the liquid into her cup. ‘It’s Arabica. I’ve been living off this for three days now; it probably isn’t good for me.’

‘Why are you doing this?’ Tony had asked her quietly, watching the thick black liquid drain into his cup. ‘Why are you serving me coffee after everything I’ve done?’

May had sunk into her seat on Tony’s right, seemingly thinking. ‘Why can’t I?’ she had replied, staring into the depths of her coffee. ‘I told you what I thought. I got everything off my chest.’ She glanced meaningfully at Tony. ‘I don’t think you had a good job doing that.’

The guilt in Tony’s heart curled like a python. ‘Yeah. It’s…kind of hard…’

‘It doesn’t have to be.’

‘Yes, I know, but…’ Tony chewed his lip. ‘Peter was my responsibility. I gave him the suit, I gave him authority, I gave him _power_. It doesn’t seem right for me to just sit here and hope things will work themselves out.’ He ran a finger over the rim of the cup, hearing the low ring that emanated from it. ‘I know he is a child. I know, and…I am sorry for ever dragging him into this.’

Tony’s fist curled. ‘I really am sorry. I…and I can’t stop _looking_ for him, either. I can feel it deep down that Peter is not…he’s not…he’s not gone yet.’ He had shrugged as he picked up his coffee. ‘He’s not gone, he’s still hanging on. I promise you, he’ll come back to us. I’ll get him back, May. I promise.’

The hard glint in May’s melted, and then she looked down, her eyes shining. Tony did the same.

In the silence, they sipped their cups of coffee, hoping to melt the iciness in their veins.

By the third week, Tony had grown desperate.

It was Christmas Eve, the hours ticking closer and closer to midnight, but there was no festivity in the air. The people who worked at the Compound had happily strung up lights and mistletoe and even set up a tree in the lobby.

The lounge was devoid of the Christmas cheer.

May and Pepper had come to stay over the weekend, a delightful sight in Tony’s eyes. It didn’t hurt so much to smile when they had arrived, toting a few small bags with clothes and things that women seemed to always need. They exchanged hugs, and for the first time in a long while he caught the whiff of lemon in Pepper’s hair.

It was nice to see a familiar face again.

But even then, they good could only last so long.

Even after May and Pepper’s appearance, Tony and fallen back into the routine he had developed those past three weeks: tinker, search, sulk, rise. It was an odd cycle, one that proved convenient to Tony but was obviously looked down upon by Rhodey, even Happy. The tinkering went by smoothly, consisting of Tony simply trying to extend the limits of his Mark L; search, sulk and rise were a little complicated.

Sometimes Tony took to searching for Peter hours at a time, hunting feverishly through the news and in the city and its outskirts and neighbouring counties. Sometimes Tony barely rose after sulking for days on end, subsequently losing himself in the depths of the Compound as he tried to piece the blanks in his mind.

Yeah, Tony could see where Rhodey was dissatisfied.

The hours were ticking closer to midnight, and Tony had collapsed onto the lounge, Rhodey and Happy sitting on chairs on the other side of the table in between them. May and Pepper had gone to the living quarters, gone to discuss some things that Tony had no part in listening to. And while they talked, here he laid.

‘Tones,’ called Rhodey softly. ‘Hey, man. Get up.’

‘What’s the point?’ Tony asked quietly, staring up at the ceiling. His lungs were doing something funny, tickling with every breath he took like he was trying to hold back a flood of barbed words (he might be. He might be. There would be a day when all those words fall out of his mouth like rain).

‘I’m already up, you know,’ continued Tony. ‘Up and awake. Very, very up. I’m just lying down, that’s all.’

Rhodey sighed, glancing at Happy. Rhodey scratched at his neck that was hidden by the seams of the prickly Christmas sweater his mother had gifted him. ‘Are you sure you haven’t overlooked anything?’ Rhodey asked after a moment.

Tony cast him a tentative look. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I’m saying, is your search being biased?’ amended Rhodey. ‘Have you just been assuming something and going along with that?’

‘And what do you suppose I’m _assuming?’_

‘HYDRA,’ Happy said, glancing up. He was still dressed in a black suit, fiddling with his hands. There was a slight stubble growing around his chin, the greyness of his lower jaw darkening the already empty look his eyes possessed. ‘Are you sure HYDRA isn’t behind this? What about A.I.M.?’

‘Oh, not _this_ again,’ Tony groaned. He pulled himself into a sitting position, his abdomen hurting from the sudden movement as he fixed the two of them with a glare. ‘You _cannot_ be seriously thinking I’m letting HYDRA off the hook? You seriously think A.I.M. is thriving like some ugly rabbit population?’

Rhodey shrugged. ‘There is a possibility—’

‘There’s always a possibility!’ Tony exclaimed loudly. ‘I know that! What I’m saying is that hanging onto these possibilities doesn’t matter! It’s not HYDRA, and it’s not A.I.M.’

‘But how do you know that?’ asked Happy, seeming genuinely perplexed.

‘Because HYDRA was outed halfway through the year,’ Tony snapped. ‘And A.I.M. collapsed three years ago. And because Project OO and Osborn are still out there.’

The lights in the lounge blinked. F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s voice, soft and empathetic, called, _‘Boss?’_

Tony was about to answer her when Rhodey cut him off with a loud sigh. ‘Oh, man, Tones,’ grumbled Rhodey, ‘Project OO? Osborn? Still?’

‘Yeah, Project OO and Osborn,’ Tony replied.

‘You even told us that Project OO stopped uploading files ‘n’ crap weeks ago, and that Osborn is just as confused as the rest of us.’

 _‘Boss?’_ F.R.I.D.A.Y. said again.

‘We were onto them, Rhodey,’ Tony said, ignoring the A.I. ‘They knew we were onto them, that’s why they stopped.’

‘And how did you know that?’

‘Because…because—’

_‘Boss.’_

‘Because!’ Tony snapped. ‘I don’t know—’

‘Exactly!’ Rhodey said, his arms in a _Told you so_ way.

‘Maybe whoever has him is still in the city,’ Happy offered.

Tony glared at him. ‘We’ve gone in circles for _days_ , Hap,’ Tony said heatedly. ‘Going on another round isn’t going to boost our chances of finding Peter to 99%.’

‘But still—’

_‘Boss—’_

‘I promised,’ Tony said lowly. ‘I promised I would find him, and I’d be damned if I let that kid rot away in some place simply because I’ve refused to look outside the list of obvious candidates.’ And Tony’s heart clenched with the guilt of it, the weight of the responsibility and the failure when he tried to uphold, and he was about let his words gush out, edged like knives and tipped with blades all directed at himself when F.R.I.D.A.Y. suddenly yelled, _‘Boss!’_

Her voice rippled through the air like a wave, washing everything in silence. Gritting his teeth, Tony glanced up at the ceiling and asked, ‘What is it, F.R.I.D.A.Y.?’

The lights flickered, and F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s words were tinged with a rather strange emotion as she said, _‘There is some strange activity occurring on your Twitter account.’_

Tony blinked. ‘My…my Twitter account?’

_‘Yes.’_

‘How has _that_ got anything to do with this?’

F.R.I.D.A.Y. didn’t reply. Instead, she pulled up the holoscreen over the table, just like she had done for numerous days three weeks ago. She showcased Tony’s Twitter page, each of the posts garnering thousands of views and millions of retweets.

But it was the recent one that had Tony’s eyes widening.


	12. Before Dawn

* * *

— _CHAPTER TWELVE_ —  
 _BEFORE DAWN_

Just like all those days ago, Peter waited in the darkness of his cell, waiting for the guards to change their shifts. He could hear them muttering about the most mundane of topics, he could hear them itching to walk off and relax once their fellow guards came along to replace them.

He waited, his muscles coiled like a snake’s, fluid and tense, begging to spring into action.

But he bided his time. He only had one chance, after all.

Peter shifted his weight on his feet, his senses perking when he heard the shuffle of feet down the corridors. He had counted, days and days ago, how long it took for the guards to swap, how long they had been absent from their posts. It was an average of one hundred and ten seconds, just bordering two minutes, and the last time Peter had smashed his way out of his cell had taken him one hundred and twenty-five seconds.

Peter would have to beat that time to make this work.

The guards’ boots squeaked, and they started walking. Peter counted for ten seconds, letting them walk out of earshot before he swung his cuffed arms at the glass wall again with a loud _BANG_. He figured it was slower to swing both arms at once, but a sturdy set of cuffs were stronger than one, able to crack the glass much quicker; it worked just fine.

The glass crackled under the force of swings. Cracks grew from the impact points, spaced all over the glass. Thirty seconds had flown by.

Behind him, Peter could sense the wary glances Bobby and Angelica threw at him. He had briefed them in on the plan, and he had told them the first time he tried to break out resulted in an absolute failure. Peter really couldn’t blame them on their hesitance, but if they wanted to leave, they were going to have to help him.

Sixty seconds down. The glass snapped and clicked, white lines spidering across the surface. Blow after blow, Peter concentrated on weakening the glass as much as he could until finally, he was at the end – one final swing would send the whole thing shattering. Freedom was within his grasp.

Peter stepped back.

And waited.

Eighty seconds down.

Peter glanced at Angelica through the small window, giving her a nod. Angelica smiled back tightly, her hair burning bright orange as if it were on fire.

And then Angelica yelled as loud as she could, ‘Peter, what are you doing?!’

The sound footsteps momentarily stopped.

‘Yeah,’ called Bobby, accompanying Angelica’s shouts with his own voice, ‘what are you doing? Are you breaking out?’

Ninety seconds down. Twenty seconds left.

The sounds of people yelling down the corridors reached Peter’s ears. Wordlessly, Peter leapt up to the ceiling, pressing himself against it. He had only found out he could still stick to surfaces; the only response that would be elicited from these actions were the mutant control device humming in warning, but never actually doing anything.

‘Peter, stop!’ Angelica yelled down the corridor.

‘Yeah, man,’ Bobby hollered too, vocabulary suddenly abandoning him.

Peter couldn’t fault him for it – because, thundering down the hallways with their guns at the ready and yelling at each other to find the best way to neutralise Peter, were the guards.

Pressing himself to ceiling, Peter hoped the Parker Luck would spare him these precious five minutes.

‘Parker!’ a guard yelled, skidding in front of his cell. His voice dropped when his gaze landed on the cracked glass to the cell – the seemingly empty cell.

Peter took his chance. Leaping from the ceiling, Peter sailed feet-first into the glass. The wall shattered, large chunks of glass flying out to knock the foremost guards onto their backs. The sound of crackling glass rang through the air like a bell as the guards were slammed to the ground, most losing their conscious fairly quickly, while the tougher ones struggled back to their feet. Peter made quick work of them, throwing them into each other and snapping their guns and cracking their helmets. In mere minutes, all the guards were out cold, but Peter could hear reinforcements on their way.

Panting, Peter eyed the ten cells that ran on his left. His cell was empty, glass wall shattered, Angelica and Bobby on either side of it. The remaining seven cells were occupied by other children, no more than ten, all glancing nervously out of their cells and at the guards, scared for what would come next.

Quickly, Peter shoved his cuffs against an unconscious guard’s hand. The guard’s fingers grazed the scanning component, and the cuffs snapped open and clattered to the ground. Cool air greeted Peter’s skin, now pale and lined with markings from the cuffs, but he didn’t take long to admire the temporary freedom he now possessed. He dragged the unconscious guard out from under the glass, raising the guard’s hand to tap it against the security panels on both Angelica and Bobby’s cells.

The cells unlocked, and both Angelica and Bobby stepped outside, their faces filled with bewilderment. Peter could sense it: it couldn’t be _that_ easy.

‘It’s not that easy, I swear,’ Peter told them as he hurriedly unlocked their cuffs with the guard’s hand. The two rubbed at their wrists as Peter explained, ‘Listen, more guards are on their way. I need you to ward them off and get the others out.’

‘What will you do?’ asked Bobby.

‘What I do best.’ Peter shrugged. The footsteps of the guards down the corridors echoed louder and louder. He fixed Angelica a serious look. ‘Okay, listen, Angel. I need you to let out all of your energy out, okay? Let ‘em have it.’

Angelica nodded briskly, a determined glint in her blazing blue eyes.

‘And Bobby?’ Peter grinned at him, and he was sure he looked like a madman. ‘“Let it go”.’

‘Oh, now I _really_ hate you,’ growled Bobby, but he was also smiling too, his breath fogging as his powers immediately kicked in.

The three of them turned around, and charging at them from the end of the hallway were the reinforcements. They opened fire, bullets raining all around them with a consecutive _BANG BANG BANG_. The small pellets of blazing metal streaked through the air, ricocheting off every surface.

Quickly, Angelica raised her hands, and the temperature in the corridor reached boiling temperatures. Peter, having only heard of what Angelica could do, watched as a wall of flame erupted between them and the guards, incinerating the bullets in seconds.

As the flames dissipated, Bobby slammed his hands onto the ground, his fingers splayed across the grated metal. Icy tendrils crawled along the ground, snaking their way to the guards. Ice encased their feet and frost crawled up their legs, freezing the guards in place as they panicked.

Gritting their teeth, Bobby and Angelica turned to look at Peter; their arms shuddered from channelling so much energy, from trying to balance each other’s forces of fire and ice while maintaining their own. ‘Go!’ they both yelled. ‘We got this!’

Flashing them a final smile, Peter took off running.

The path to the communications room burned like fire in his mind, highlighted in the chaos that erupted around him. The corridors and hallways were doused with red light, the facility quickly buckling down into lockdown. Without his cuffs to worry about, Peter flung himself through the corridors, hurrying as fast as he could. The only fortunate thing was the most of the patrol groups had been redirected to the cells; Peter only prayed for Angelica and Bobby to hold their own for just a little longer.

Peter skidded past the research rooms when his Spider-Sense tingled. Without looking, he turned on his heel and struck with his fist – his hand clamping tightly around a metallic arm.

Octavius’ arm wriggled in his grip, claw snapping, clearly surprised. Grunting, Peter shoved it back into the room from which it emerged from – some lab whose machinery was still running, a giant platform with a rotating sphere surrounded by a number of spinning rings. Octavius looked at him with wide eyes, his hand hovering by the controls of the machine.

‘I don’t see you until next week,’ Octavius muttered.

‘Sorry, Doc,’ Peter said snidely. ‘I’ve postponed my appointment.’

Looking back on it, it had been so easy to overpower Octavius with two arms and hands and when high on adrenaline. Peter had simply forced the arms back, tearing and clawing at them, jamming interlocking mechanisms and pulling the arms apart piece by piece. He eventually left the room with Octavius bound up by the remains of his metallic arms, propped up by the machine that had begun to hum dangerously.

Leaving the room, Peter took the final turn through the corridor, eyes scanning the walls when finally, the door to communications stood ajar in front of him.

It was like standing in a dream.

For many days (weeks?) Peter had dreamed of standing in front of this very door, of barging in with a blaze of glory. All Peter felt now was the incessant clawing of desperation and worry in his chest.

Peeking past the door, Peter found the communications room to be empty, deathly silent. He crept inside, his bare feet picking up the grime and dust on the ground as he scouted the room, trying to pick up the sounds of any guards who might have still been lingering. There was no one – it was just Peter.

Smiling slightly, Peter hurried to close the door and lock it behind him before he ran to the nearest computer. It blinked lazily, as if unsure of what to do with itself. Peter restarted the computer and opened up a .NET application and tried to bypass basic login processes; he managed to disable it, but he was worried of how long it took. He needed to get a message out faster, quicker, before anyone found out.

Still working with the code, Peter scanned through the multiple files and programs and protocols that were buried in the computer’s shared network and hard drive, though only one made itself visible: _MCD PROGRAMMING._

MCD. _Mutant control device._

Peter hastily opened up the program and skimmed through it, the words towards the end piquing his interest: _DO YOU WISH TO DISABLE ALL TEN (10) MCD UNITS AND OVERRIDE BASIC PROTOCOLS?_

If Peter could lift Mjolnir, he would have just about smashed the _Yes_ button with it.

He clicked the button, and he felt a small buzzing on the nape of his neck – the mutant control device whirring before completely shutting down. There was only silence; his Spider-Sense poked at it to make sure it would stay that way. Hopefully the other children knew what it meant, too.

Peter settled to try and find the best way to communicate with the wider world when suddenly the computer screen went black, like his phone had just before Peter had been chased through the halls of Midtown. The screen flickered, red words boldly reading, _FACILITY LOCKDOWN. SERVERS DISCONNECTING._

‘Wait, what?’ Peter’s fingers clawed nervously against the table as the computer turn off, and it stayed off. He glanced around the communications rooms and watched as each computer, one by one, disappeared like the stars just before dawn.

‘No, no, _no,’_ growled Peter, launching himself to his feet. He moved to a nearby computer but it shut off just before he reached it. He moved to another one, but it was gone in a huff of dying electricity. Breaths panicky, Peter looked around him with wide eyes because no, this wasn’t supposed to happen, this wasn’t a part of the plan, he was supposed to find a way out and everything had collapsed around him.

Peter stood in the middle of the room, fists clenching as he was bathed in darkness and the red glow of the lockdown lights.

And the pinprick of white light in the corner of the room.

Cautiously, Peter stepped towards, his Spider-Sense guiding him away from bumping into tables and chairs. On a small chair tucked in the corner was a small slit of light emanating from an object. A phone. Peter turned it over, only to see a video playing. He tried to exit the video, and was surprised when it popped back to the home screen. The bars were full.

‘No,’ Peter muttered as he swiped through the phone applications, clicking on one at random. ‘It can’t be _that_ easy.’

It was that easy. The phone opened up Twitter, the account of whoever owned the phone already signed in and active. On the home page were a list of names and posts from the accounts the person followed – including Tony Stark.

Peter’s heart skipped a beat. He could contact Mr. Stark. _He could contact him_. He could send a message, and with the phone’s connection someone could trace the message’s origin. Mr. Stark could trace the message back to him.

Fingers fumbling, Peter quickly tried to make a new post, only managing to type _@realtonystark_ when he froze.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of people would tag The Tony Stark on a daily basis. Mr. Stark would have learned to ignore them, maybe even dismiss them without even looking. What were the chances that Mr. Stark would notice – who was this guy? – _Alistair Smythe_ in a sea of thousands of other people?

Peter bit his lip, then signed out of the account. He was taking a risk, he knew it, but there could be a chance for something better than his message getting lost in a sea of notifications.

The login screen popped up again, and Peter typed into the username _realtonystark._

His fingers hovered over the password box. Peter worried his lip between his teeth as he typed in the first thing he thought of: _ironman._

The textbox was quick to appear: _PASSWORD INCORRECT._

‘Of course, it is,’ Peter muttered. He retyped it again, murmuring, ‘How about _IRONMAN_ , in capitals?’

_PASSWORD INCORRECT._

‘Um, _iron-man-rox?’_

_PASSWORD INCORRECT._

‘ _Tony-stark-one-two-three?’_

_PASSWORD INCORRECT._

Peter felt like collapsing into tears, because here he was, having locked himself in a room as he tried to hack into his mentor’s Twitter account while the children outside were fighting for their lives. So much for not having people not die.

Blinking, Peter peered through the tears that had gathered in his eyes and glanced at the new link that appeared at the bottom: _Secret Question_.

 _What do I have left to lose?_ Peter thought as he clicked the link.

The question was written in big, thick black font, glaring at him: _WHAT IS YOUR PHONE NUMBER?_

Peter gaped at it. Phone number? Mr. Stark’s phone number? His phone number was the password?

He remembered the days Peter had called him, and how most calls ended with Mr. Stark quipping, ‘ _Remember your phone number, kid. I can hardly remember mine; I have to keep quizzing myself or Miss Potts will have my head if I miss any phone calls.’_

Mr. Stark was notorious for forgetting his phone number.

And Peter knew Mr. Stark’s number.

Pure elation rippled through Peter as he stifled a sob, typing _212-970-4133_ into the password box. The _PASSWORD INCORRECT_ message shifted from red to green as Peter signed into Mr. Stark’s account. The notifications bell was labelled with the number _99+_ , and Peter was scared to find out just how many notifications Mr. Stark had purposely missed. Peter quickly opened up a new post and typed in the first thing that popped into his mind when he thought about Mr. Stark:

_It sucks when the hybrid puppies are stolen._

Peter had only clicked _Post_ when his Spider-Sense screeched. He dropped the phone as a loud _BANG_ resonated through the room. The door creaked and groaned under the weight of something strong, something powerful. The hairs on his body stood on end when an inhuman sound, low and sinister, slithered into the room between the seams of the door: _‘Paaaarrrrkerrrr…’_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No joke, that is Tony Stark's number. If you live in the US, go call the number. Do it. Please. Just do it, Tony Stark literally will answer you.
> 
> And if you are a wimp (like me) or you don't live in the US (also like me) then just go on youtube. There's a video there.


	13. Opals Under the Night Sky

* * *

— _CHAPTER THIRTEEN_ —  
_OPALS UNDER THE NIGHT SKY_

Tony’s eyes trailed along the words that floated in front of him, the arc reactor clipped to his chest suddenly heavy. Eight words, each one no more than two syllables. In a post having only been published mere minutes ago. The post had already garnered thousands of views, thousands of comments. One person had even written, “ _Elon Musk created the Boring Company. Now Tony Stark is creating hybrid puppies? What kind of Christmas is this?”._

What kind of Christmas _was_ this?

_It sucks when the hybrid puppies are stolen._

Tony never suspected his horrible analogy to bite him in the rear.

‘What the hell is that supposed mean?’ demanded Rhodey, the world’s most bemused look painting his face. ‘What the hell are _hybrid puppies?’_

‘Hybrid puppies,’ Happy murmured softly, looking as if he had seen a ghost. He glanced at Tony, his stony face giving way to complete slack-jawed shock. ‘ _Hybrid puppies.’_

Hybrid puppies. Words that Tony, despite hating them for biting him in the rear, never would have expected to be so relieved to hear them.

‘What are you on about?’ Rhodey asked, his confusion growing still.

Tony turned to his friend, then, feeling as if the world had dropped away from him and was weightless, floating without gravity, floating in free fall. He pointed at the words with a shaking finger as he said, ‘It’s Peter.’

Rhodey’s face was caught between suspicion and relief. ‘Say what? Tones, are you saying that’s _Peter?’_

‘It has to be,’ agreed Happy, that look of shock still on his face. ‘Tony, me, the kid. We were the only ones who heard those words. We were the only ones…’

Tony wasted no time. Straightening to his feet, he called to the ceiling, ‘F.R.I.D.A.Y., trace the message. Find where it’s signal originated from.’

‘ _On it, Boss,’_ F.R.I.D.A.Y. chirped, the holoscreen dismissing the window with his Twitter page and pulling up a map centred on the East Coast.

But apparently Rhodey was not having it. ‘Tones, just hold on a minute,’ he said. ‘How are you so sure that this is Peter?’

Tony glared at him. Something in his chest twisted as he said, ‘Are you saying my intuition has to be questioned for every action I take?’

Rhodey grumbled a sigh. He said, ‘What if it is an imposter? What if whatever organisation that’s messing with you is trying to draw you out? You know how that works; maybe the kid isn’t anywhere near a phone, or a laptop, or anything.’

Tony snapped.

‘What do you _mean?!’_ Tony asked, his voice going shrill with rage and desperation. ‘This is the only thing we’ve gotten in weeks! In _three weeks,_ Rhodes! We’ve looked in the city, in the suburbs and neighbourhoods! This is the only lead to the kid! I’m not going to let it go cold so quick and shoot down every possibility just because it sounds questionable!’

Happy and Rhodey just glanced at him with a slack expression. ‘What?’ asked Happy.

‘I’m going,’ Tony reiterated. ‘I’m going, whether you want me to or not. I feel it in my _gut_ , Hap, I’m not going to just give—’

‘No, we get that,’ Happy said, raising an eyebrow. ‘But you said _your kid_.’

Tony blinked. ‘Huh?’ he muttered intelligently.

‘You called him _my kid_. You said, “ _This is the only lead to my kid”.’_

Tony shook his head, though his heart clenched at the thought of dismissing such a slip; it could have been embarrassing, or endearing to some extent, but Tony just didn’t have the heart to accept it at the moment. ‘Okay, cool. By the way, I’m still going.’ He pointed Rhodey in a threatening way, unable to channel heat through his gaze.

Rhodey only looked away.

After a moment of silence, F.R.I.D.A.Y. spoke up again. She quietly said, ‘ _I have located the origin of the post.’_ She highlighted West Virginia on the map she displayed on the holoscreen, narrowing it down to a large section of woodland. Unable to pinpoint an exact location, she circled a small area deep within the forest. ‘ _This is the approximate location of the post; its location has interfered with specific coordinates as it was transmitted, but I’ll be able to find an exact location if we scout the area.’_

‘Brilliant,’ Tony said. He clapped his hands, glanced at Happy and Rhodey and nodded his head slightly.

The two men just nodded in return. Rhodey quietly murmured, ‘Just…be careful, Tones, alright?’

‘ _Careful_ is my middle name,’ Tony quipped darkly. When no one answered, he strode out of the lounge and through the shortcut to the lab. The room was dark, not having been used for a day, but Tony had been here plenty of times to know exactly where the workbenches and chairs were. As he twisted his way through the lab, when he paused. He glanced down at the table to the right.

Peter’s web shooters sat, folded and compact, on the empty tabletop. It glittered in the little light that still filtered through the lab, glinting like opals under the night sky.

He wasn’t sure what had prompted him to snatch up the web shooters and pocket them in his undersuit.

Tony ducked out into the lobby, his footsteps muffled and squeaky against the floor. The lights were on and the lobby was empty, as expected. He had raised a hand to tap it against his arc reactor when a voice called, ‘Tony.’

He paused, then turned around. May was sitting in one of the plush chairs, practically sinking into the maroon fabric. She looked like she had just woken up, with her glasses askew and her hair messy, but there was a lively look in her eyes, a calculating one as she regarded Tony. She straightened to her feet and stepped towards Tony, her movements stiff and light.

She glanced at Tony’s hand, still outstretched to touch his arc reactor, and she seemed to understand. ‘You found him?’ she asked softly.

Tony’s mouth moved without any sound. He cleared his throat and tried again. ‘I— I believe it’s him,’ he finally said, his hand falling back down to feel the web shooters in his pocket. ‘I just…hope it is him.’

May nodded, her lips pursed. ‘Just,’ she said after a moment, ‘just bring him back in one piece, okay? Please?’

Tony immediately nodded once, twice. ‘I will,’ he said strongly. ‘I will, I promise.’ He looked outside, at the dark, dark world, and gestured to it; May caught on, raising a hand to wave at Tony. He stepped through the front door, shivering against the harsh winds. It didn’t usually get this cold in December, but maybe this year was different.

Tapping his arc reactor, Tony felt the nanoparticles slither up and down his body, encasing him in the sturdy form of the Mark L. F.R.I.D.A.Y. brought up the map to the forest in West Virginia, and with one final glance at the path he was to take, Tony shot into the night sky and sped off.

It took roughly two hours to cross the border into West Virginia, even with the Mark L at 267% capacity. The suit’s battery had dropped significantly, and Tony wanted to save most of its power for combat and scouting rather than simply flying.

The world below him had faded from humble cityscapes to desolate forests, darkening immediately as Tony ventured away from civilisation. The trees were spindly and bare, their leaves having withered and dried, their branches like ebony fingers reaching up to drag Tony to the ground and into a sea of horrors. Tony made sure to fly just high enough to escape their grasp.

F.R.I.D.A.Y. directed Tony to approximate location of the origin of Peter’s message, and once he had crossed into the area, she began to run scans to find the exact spot. Tony circled the area once, twice, before angling himself downward. The suit responded, gliding towards the ground swiftly and quietly. A flash of his repulsor gauntlets and boots and Tony had righted himself and landed onto the uneven ground, his boots kicking up dirt.

Tony eyed the area around him. The trees, easily twenty metres in height, towered over him, blocking what little moonlight there was that hung in the air like a veil. The stars were pinpricks against the sky, flickering like glitter. The dead leaves and broken branches crunched and snapped underfoot as Tony walked along the uneven earth, the ground sloping downwards and downwards. White fog curled around his legs like snakes, chilling him right down to the bones.

 _‘How are we going, Fri?’_ asked Tony, voice soft but metallic from within his helmet, his tone barely above a whisper. The itch to find something and crack it open was barely irresistible. He wanted to dig, to claw, to unearth the mystery that had been simmering beneath his feet for so long, rotting like a carcass and sending plumes of foul smells into the air. At this point, that was all Tony could latch onto: the wisps of air, twisting between his fingers.

 _‘Are we looking for some spooky warehouse?’_ Tony continued. _‘Some aircraft, vehicles?’_

His HUD blinked once as F.R.I.D.A.Y. said in an equally soft tone, ‘ _I am detecting some radio interference, boss, but there are no signs of warehouses or vehicles of any kind.’_ She paused. _‘However, there are some large quantities of metal in the area – metal of the artificial kind.’_

Tony’s interest piqued. He cocked his head to the side, watching as F.R.I.D.A.Y. highlighted a path through the undergrowth. He followed it, eventually stopping by a large clump of boulders. They were piled on top of each other haphazardly, casting dark shadows in a dark world.

The HUD scans flew over the boulders, and an object popped into view.

‘ _It’s a security mechanism, boss,’_ F.R.I.D.A.Y. said softly. ‘ _It’s connected to set of doors that have been set into the ground. The mechanism consists of biometric scans.’_

Tony trudged his way over to the boulders, nanotech whirring as he moved. He turned his head and looked deep into the gaps of the boulders, eyeing the small outline of a biometric security system in its shadows. _‘It should let me through if I overload it, right?’_ he asked F.R.I.D.A.Y. after eyeing the scanner for a minute.

The A.I. didn’t reply, just showed Tony the ideal amount of output from his repulsor gauntlets needed to overload the biometric scanner.

Quickly, Tony raised his gauntlet and fired at the scanner. The whine of energy filled the air as blue light completely swallowed the scanner; technology sizzled and sparked under the force and power of the repulsor blast, electricity screeching as the scanner malfunctioned, unable to handle the power it received.

A low groan emanated from the ground. Tony’s head quickly snapped to the space beside him, where dirt and branches and leaves shuddered on the ground. He could feel vibrations travel up his legs, shaking his core as a chasm opened up in the ground.

A chasm was an overstatement; there was a split in the ground, growing slowly with a loud rumble, too perfectly even and straight to have been the result of the ground cracking apart. The split became a gap, and beyond the gap Tony could see a gentle slope, maybe thirty metres or so, leading down to what looked like a tunnel – a corridor, crafted with metal, crafted with a purpose, crafted by people. The set of doors halted in their movements, leaving enough room for a person to walk down the slope and into the corridor.

Tony had never been one to wait.

With the Iron Man suit a heavy but comfortable presence, Tony slowly descended the slope, the doors above him remaining open and sending drafts of freezing winds against his back. The darkness was quick to engulf him, but the lights of the suit glared brighter, and the glow from the corridor gave Tony a clear goal. By the time he reached the end of the tunnel, the only thing that filled Tony’s awareness was red.

Pure red light, harsh and ominous and glaring. The colour of a lockdown.

Tony felt lost as he wandered through the corridors, washed in a sea of red light. He found himself in the centre of a metal maze, hallways branching off from where he stood and into a labyrinth that seemed to stretch on forever. Sometimes there were doors that lined the walls; other times, there were just large sheets of metal. The hallways were oppressing and dark, the shadows blacker than midnight.

He could hear sounds humming through the walls, like the sounds were being pounded against the walls. It was constricting, in a way; Tony felt as if the world around him was descending into chaos while the only he could observe was the contracting walls of the corridors around him, boxing him in with no room to move around.

God, had Peter been in _here_ all this time?

Feeling sick to his bones, Tony stalked forwards, his footsteps clanging against the metal grated floors. The sounds were getting louder, like hurried footsteps and the rush of wind, or energy. Tony’s HUD picked up an increase in electromagnetic radiation when he turned and had half a dozen guns lock onto him. Their red tracking lasers zeroed in on the arc reactor.

Tony glanced up. There were six guards, all clothed in black Kevlar-type outfits and glossy black helmets; some of those headgears had cracks and dust on them, evidence pointing towards a fight they had engaged in earlier.

One of them stilled as he questioned, ‘Wait, when was Iron Man supposed to come?’

Tony would have chuckled if not for the grim setting. He stepped forward, the red of his suit darkening to a bloody scarlet, as he gnashed his teeth and said, _‘Yes, I was. You forgot to send the invitation.’_

The struggle was quick, with Tony immediately blasting the guards away with his gauntlets. The guns fired, the bullets shrieked, but the nanotech of the Mark L held up against them, rippling and undulating to protect Tony underneath. F.R.I.D.A.Y. was quick to reveal weak spots in the guards’ defences, and with sharp strikes Tony was able to knock everyone to the ground, unconscious. He’d been here to rescue, not slaughter.

(The kid was rubbing off onto him, no matter how much Tony wanted to spill blood).

 _‘F.R.I.D.A.Y., scan the infrastructure, find a math to Peter’s bio—’_ Tony’s voice cut off when he saw who was standing on the other end of the corridor.

A pair of kids, one blazing like the sun and the other spilling fog like the Arctic, peered at him. Behind them was a large group of children, all young and timid and scared. Scared of the guards, or Iron Man, Tony would never know.

 _‘Hi, fellas,’_ Tony called to them, his speech immediately slowing and voice going soft and steady, mimicking how Peter had talked to the many children he had found in the streets of New York. His faceplate retracted, and his skin prickled from not knowing whether to pick up the burning or the freezing temperatures. ‘It’s me,’ Tony said, hoping he appeared to be unthreatening. ‘Iron Man. I’m here to rescue all of you.’

The kids all relaxed after hearing his words, stepping over the unconscious bodies of the guards as they scrambled to reach him. He counted nine, including the Fiery and Frosty pair. Plenty of the children had chestnut hair, many had brown irises, but Tony couldn’t find Peter in amongst their ranks.

Running purely on assumptions, Tony turned to Fiery and Frosty, as they seemed to be the leader of the group here, and asked, ‘I’m counting only nine; weren’t there supposed to be ten of you? Another kid, ye high, brown hair and eyes, a little skinny?’

Fiery’s eyes widened as she looked to Frosty. Her red hair glowed like lava. ‘You mean Peter?’ she asked; her voice was tinged with worry. ‘He— he went to the communications room. Said he was going to try and contact someone.’

‘That someone was _you?’_ blurted out Frosty as he glanced at Tony, looking bewildered as a huge cloud of fog trailed down from his ears. ‘Wow. I…okay. Okay, okay. Pete said he would be back when he called someone, but he hasn’t— he hasn’t come back.’ Frosty turned back to Tony, his gaze lost behind a curtain of dark hair. ‘You have to get him back.’

That was enough for Tony’s limbs to start working again. Faceplate snapping down again, he pointed down the path he had used to enter whatever lair this was. ‘ _Go down this path,’_ he told the children. _‘It’ll lead you outside. Stay in the cover of the trees and boulders, and stay quiet. I’ll find Peter and stop any guards from coming up. Alright?’_

Fiery and Frosty nodded, then called for the kids to follow them as they ran for the exit. One of the kids who ran past tapped Tony’s abdomen as he screeched, ‘Thank you so much I love you Iron Man thank you for saving us!’

The enthusiasm cracked Tony’s heart a little.

Once the children had disappeared, Tony ordered F.R.I.D.A.Y. to scan the area for any rooms that are equipped with any communications and transmission technology, regardless if they were online or not. As the A.I. set about completing the task, Tony wandered through the halls, gazing into the windows that accompanied the few doors. All Tony could see were large machines, powered up and still running or quiet and unmoving. There were rooms with files and paperwork, and rooms that held…materials. Needless to say, Tony burned research and papers and written works and hard drives. He burned them until all there was left was ash and goo; he would rather that mess over the research people willingly delved into.

Research consisting of some super-powered army, all stemming from the stabilisation of the Oz Formula.

All stemming from the first successful batch originating from Subject AF #15’s blood.

Peter Parker’s blood.

Tony burned it all.

He watched as the flames devoured everything in a hungry flash when F.R.I.D.A.Y. murmured, ‘ _Boss, the communications room is right at the end of this hallway. And based on the scans detecting life forms there are two—’_

F.R.I.D.A.Y. never finished her sentence. Tony flinched when earth-shattering _BOOM_ shuddered through the hallway, rocking the ground and nearly flinging Tony off his feet. His flight stabilisers managed to keep him upright when suddenly the wall by the door he was standing next collapsed like a sandcastle, the wave washing it away with one powerful burst of water.

The metal wall crumpled, and out flung a body.

Tony barely had time to raise his hands as the limp person collided with him, and they both went sprawling, limbs flailing. Tony fell onto his back, nanotech humming underneath him as the person collapsed onto him, wheezing. A mop of brown hair curled into his visor.

Tony froze. He blinked once, twice, one more time as his heart began to flutter like a butterfly. With a shaky inhale, Tony whispered, _‘Kid?’_

Peter was coughing, his body curled within the burning and torn sickly green outfit he was dressed in. His face was pale and his hair was greasy, a huge clump of his hair shorter than the rest. He was bone thin, delicate, so delicate that Tony thought a single shove would break the kid’s bone like glass.

And there was blood. So much _blood_ , so much of it that any thoughts of it being anyone else’s disappeared from Tony’s mind. Peter was literally drenched in the crimson liquid, covered head to foot, blood leaking from his arms, from his torn shirt, from his face, _everywhere_. It made Tony sick, it made him want to whine, because this was a sight he never hoped to see.

When Peter looked up at him, his bloodshot eyes widened with hope. A trickle of blood dripped into his eye. ‘Mr. Stark?’

 _‘Oh, God.’_ Tony scrambled to his feet, reaching out to help Peter. His heart pounded like thunder, drowning in an ocean of fear and hope and relief and anger and raw _anguish_. _‘Oh, God, you’re really not okay. Peter Parker, I could be mad at you right now but first I’m going to drag your hurt and bloody—’_

‘No, no no no, Mr. Stark, _look out!’_ Without missing a beat, Peter launched himself at Tony, his thin arms wrapping around Tony’s middle and throwing them backwards. Without his repulsor boots firing, Tony felt pure weightlessness.

And then they were on the ground again, landing harshly on the metal and the spot they had been in seconds ago was reduced to a blast of fire and bubbling metal. If Peter had been a second too late, they would have melted into a smoking pile of atoms.

Peter was rambling, pushing Tony away as he spat out a thousand words in seconds. ‘—you gotta get out of here he’s after me and he’ll hurt you we gotta go we gotta go now—’

Tony gripped Peter’s hands, trying to ground him in his panicked state. ‘ _Peter, listen to me, calm down, what on Earth are you talking—?’_

The words dried up in his mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You don't get an apology, I've reunited the boys :D


	14. Become Its God

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We got a gritty and bloody chapter ahead, folks.

* * *

— _CHAPTER FOURTEEN_ —  
_BECOME ITS GOD_

Norman Osborn's face had split into a wide grin, smile edged with mania, teeth tipped with insanity. Peter watched, body aching and bleeding and tired, as Osborn stepped out of the gaping hole in the wall of the communications room. His veins pulsed green with every heartbeat. His clothes were ragged and slightly torn from where Peter had clawed at him.

That usually wasn’t Peter’s style of fighting. He never scratched or punched or hit. He never used his hands to fight in fear of seriously injuring someone; he could kill with his fists. He knew better than that, so he took it upon himself to fight safely.

Not now, however. Because all attempt to fight safely had burned away in his mind. Only fear was rooted in its place.

 _Norman Osborn_ was that fear. Because Osborn had batted Peter away with a single hand. Because Osborn possessed strength that rivalled Peter’s own.

Because Osborn held the mask of the goblin in his bloody and raw hand after pulling it off his own face.

(Peter realised it wasn’t Osborn he was afraid of. It was the mask. It was the symbol of the goblin and the power it possessed that Peter was afraid of).

(He was afraid of what Osborn could do when he drew upon that power).

The ground shifted beneath Peter, and for a moment he thought Osborn was ready to fight again, was ready to burn the world, but Peter realised his Spider-Sense had not reacted to the movement, and it was only then he remembered that Iron Man was trying to pull himself to his feet. Iron Man, Tony Stark, finally here, finally here in the armour and flesh. Peter had never felt such elation when he had been thrown into him then.

With pain stabbing his limbs, Peter groaned as he rolled off Mr. Stark’s legs, his blood turning the scarlet and golden metal an ugly crimson. The air stung his skin and the world seemed to wobble. Peter teetered on his legs, about to fall to the side when Mr. Stark steadied him. Peter tried to focus on the suit’s smooth texture as he heard Mr. Stark call, _‘What the hell happened to you, Norman?’_ A pause. _‘You dirty, evil piece of…what is this? What in the name of everything holy did you do, you sick, twisted—?’_

Osborn laughed – a long, haunting laugh, one that echoed through the corridor and vibrated in the metal and resonated in Peter’s bones. Osborn tossed the mask aside, reaching for something behind him as he said, ‘ _Tooonyyyy_. A pleasure seeing _you_ here, uninvited as always. And you ask me, what have _I_ been doing? Well, I’ve willingly taken the next step in human evolution.’

He said that before. Peter remembered this, it only happened a few minutes ago. Then why did it still sound terrifying?

Osborn’s arm snapped out from behind the shadows, and he held the object in his hand as if it were the answer to everything: a syringe, filled with sickly green liquid. The same one as before, the same one as _before._

Moving again, Peter pushed at Mr. Stark, trying to drive him back. ‘Mr. Stark, we need to _leave,’_ he hissed at the suit, at the faceplate, at the man underneath, trying to get him to understand. ‘He— he’s going to use that Formula, he’s going to— it makes him stronger, and—’

‘ _Steady, Pete,’_ Mr. Stark’s voice, metallic and steady, emanated from the helmet, but the tone of of his voice sounded like Mr. Stark was confused.

‘Too late!’ Osborn howled gleefully, sinking the needle deep into the flesh of his arm aimlessly. The Formula drained into his skin, his muscle, his bones, and Peter could see just how quickly it changed Osborn – changed him into something that reflected who he was on the inside: a demon with a lust for slavery and power, hulking and towering over the normalcy of the world.

Osborn’s green veins seemed to glow, the green tinge spreading outward, turning his skin an ugly oxley green colour, thick and lined with rough scales. His coppery hair crumpled to ash, being replaced by a mane of jagged cartilage formations curling out from his jaw and down his shoulders and up the sides of his face, the largest pair elongating into horns that protruded from his forehead. Talons tipped his fingers, sharpened like knives. He grew in size, quickly growing past four metres in height, his shirt and coat tearing apart into measly strips of cloth.

The Goblin roared, his hands bursting into flames in a display of strength and power.

‘ _Oh my God,’_ Peter heard Mr. Stark murmur. Iron Man stepped in front of him, Mr. Stark turning around quickly to look at Peter. ‘ _Kid, quick,’_ he said, holding out a hand as if he was about to drop something. Peter held out his, surprised to see a pair of silvery rectangles topple out from Mr. Stark’s repulsor gauntlet: his web shooters.

‘ _Put them on, and get out of here—’_

In a wave of fire, Mr. Stark was blasted backwards, crashing through metal as if it were made of paper.

His heart in his throat, Peter snapped his web shooters on, relishing in the familiar feeling of the small metal platings clasping around his wrist and the lever sitting comfortably in the dip of his palm. He’d missed his web shooters. Osborn had quickly turned Peter into a bloody mess earlier, even before the demonic upgrade; hopefully the playing fields could be evened out now.

Peter’s Spider-Sense flared, and he had barely managed to leap backwards before a column of flame burned the spot he was standing in before. The metal turned white and soft, melting under the heat. The Goblin rumbled a throaty laugh, trudging forward. Fire licked at the hems of his pants, and miraculously (and thankfully) they didn’t burst into flames.

Working his fingers again, Peter raised a hand, pain shooting down his arm. Ignoring it, Peter fired a long stream of webbing, the resounding _THWIP_ loud and sharp as it splattered over the Goblin’s eyes. Blinded, the Goblin roared, tearing at the webbing. Peter took that chance to run up to the Goblin, leaping into the air and driving his fist into the side of the Goblin’s head.

The monster staggered back, momentarily overwhelmed before snarling, his elongated and pointed ears twitching as he turned his head, as if he was trying to locate Peter. ‘ _Paaarrrkerrr,’_ the Goblin hissed, his grin filled with razor-sharp teeth, his words low and rumbling.

‘No!’ Peter yelled at him, readying his web shooters. ‘No, stop smiling! It’s creepy!’

A string of web cut through the air, but the Goblin burned through it with a wave of his hand. ‘I see,’ said the Goblin, as if he was making an observation. ‘I see you’re not _Peter Parker_ …you’ve grown. You’ve evolved. You’re Spider-Man now.’

‘Yeah,’ Peter snarled.

‘We are the same,’ the Goblin said. ‘We’ve embraced the changes, accepted our new selves. Unlike the others who failed to keep up with it.’

Peter’s heart twisted painfully at the mention of the children who died before, who died _because_ of him. Grabbing debris from the broken walls, Peter lugged it at the Goblin as he shouted, ‘I’m not like you! All you want to do is enslave the world because you feed off power!’

The Goblin swatted away the chunk of metal, his eyes blazing like twin suns. ‘It’s not about _enslaving_ the world,’ he purred, grinning. ‘I am giving the world something they lost. The Avengers are uncoordinated, painted as untrustworthy in the light of the Accords; their separation has left the world vulnerable, aimless, confused of its own existence.’ The Goblin’s fists were alight again, burning with sinister crackles. ‘And what better way is there to take advantage of that…when you can become its God?’

Moving fast, Peter ducked as fireball whizzed past his head, singeing the hairs on his arms and neck. Spider-Sense unfurling and jangling, he managed to leap back to avoid a swipe of the Goblin’s large clawed hands. Peter straightened and unleashed a volley of webbing at the Goblin, splattering it all over his arms and legs, hoping it would be enough to just hold him in place—

The webbing snapped, burned and crumbled. The Goblin towered over him again, and Peter was ready to run back when a blast of blue light split the world in large flashes. The afterimages were burned in the backs of Peter’s eyes as he watched Mr. Stark re-emerge from the rubble, his faceplate furious and seething.

‘ _Wanna repeat that again, Osborn?’_ Mr. Stark asked, his tone surprisingly calm as the nanotech in his suit shuddered as if infuriated. ‘ _I never knew you wanted to replace Capital-G God himself; isn’t that vain of you?’_ He fired another round of repulsor blasts, zeroing on the Goblin’s face. ‘ _Oh, wait, you were always one for theatrics.’_

‘You’re one to talk, Stark,’ snarled the Goblin, turning around to face him, his expression burning with a fury that hell could never match.

And then everything was a blur. Peter watched vacantly, as if he were viewing the world from right behind his head, watching as his body flung itself about, shooting webbing and throwing punches and kicks and dodging streams of scarlet fire. He watched as Mr. Stark flew about in the tight spaces, commanding his suit to wash wave over wave of repulsor fire, drenching the Goblin with blue light. They were doing well at evading the Goblin, they were doing alright.

Until the Goblin raised a hand, talon’s flashing, and swiped it across Peter’s back, spilling blood and knocking Peter off his feet. Until the Goblin grabbed Mr. Stark by the ankle, crushing it with a sickening _snap_ and tossing him to the side.

Peter’s out-of-body experience was cut short with a cry as searing pain clawed at his skin and torn flesh, amplified by the constant trailing of blood leaking down his back. His healing factor had completely vanished, which could have been extremely helpful—

His Spider-Sense howled, and Peter couldn’t react in time to stop the Goblin’s huge hand from clamping down around his back, aggravating the numerous cuts and slashes along his middle. The air in his lungs sizzled as the Goblin held him up in the air, gazing at him with his crimson eyes. He smiled.

‘All of this has been made possible because of _you,_ my boy,’ purred the Goblin as he stepped over the burning wreckage towards Mr. Stark. ‘You have given me information, given me access to the world of you powerful people, showed me what made you tick.’

He turned his massive horned head towards Mr. Stark, who was groaning. One of his repulsor boots, the one covering his crushed ankle, sputtered and refused to power up, leaving him down one boot. Mr. Stark tried to scramble away, but the Goblin placed his foot over the Iron Man suit, pinning him in place.

Peter’s cry of protest was cut short as the Goblin tightened his grip on him. The Goblin growled, ‘With this Formula I can create a more...efficient method of protecting this planet. The Avengers have failed.’ He grinned down at Mr. Stark, who was struggling to wriggle free; it only made the Goblin push him further into metal. Mr. Stark let out a choked gasp, muttering something as the Goblin said, ‘Step aside, Stark. Your attempts of bringing world peace have ended in ashes. _I_ will do a better job than you _ever_ will.’

Fury engulfed Peter. His vision tinted red. Wheezing, he clawed at the Goblin’s hand wrapped tight around him and tried to wriggle out of the vice-like grip. His muscles burned, and his bones creaked. With a cry, Peter wrenched himself out of the Goblin’s hand and launched himself at the Goblin’s head. His fist _cracked_ against the Goblin’s nose, and Peter could feel cartilage shift beneath his fingers, an ugly green liquid dribbling out from the Goblin’s nostrils almost immediately.

‘You monster!’ Peter yelled at the Goblin, his Spider-Sense lashing out and driving him forwards and backwards, helping him avoid the Goblin’s attempts to grab him. ‘You goblin! You selfish, greedy, maniacal goblin!’

The Goblin was unsteady on his feet, his hands sizzling with energy but never unleashing any fire in fear of burning himself; Peter figured the Goblin wouldn’t get burned anyway. Peter shot webbing into the Goblin’s eyes and scrambled for purchase onto the hulking beast’s back, yanking his head back by the horns with all his aching might. The Goblin stumbled back from the imbalance, stepping away from Mr. Stark as he roared in what could have been _pain_.

‘You don’t want to protect the world, you just want it wrapped around your finger!’ Peter hissed into the Goblin’s ear, his words low and heated and _disgusted_. ‘This isn’t about public safety, this isn’t about doing the right thing, this is about your hunger for power. You sure as hell are not going to be out there protecting the people when all you want is for the world to look up at you like you were the messiah!’

‘Insolent child!’ howled the Goblin, his hand lashing out with speed a being his size shouldn’t be able to possess. His hand caught Peter’s side, and he was flung off the Goblin’s back, landing on the ground in a pile of trembling and tired limbs as he watched the Goblin’s blazing fist sink into the walls like butter. Hollering, the Goblin yanked his hand back out. Bringing out a whole chunk of the wall with it.

Peter could feel the groan that vibrated through his body as the infrastructure of the facility weakened bit by bit – the burning metal, the missing supports in the walls, the furious pounding of the Goblin as he turned his hulking body towards Peter again. His eyes burned like the pits of hell.

His Spider-Sense quivered as Peter felt a pair of arms, cold and metallic, slip around his chest, pulling him back and away from the wrathful gaze of the Goblin. His blood painted the ground black in the red light and the eerie glow of the fires. The walls weakened further and further, their bases buckling, supports snapping. The ceiling groaned in despair.

‘ _Come on, kid, come on, work with me,’_ came Mr. Stark’s pants from behind him as he dragged Peter backwards. The tinkling sounds of nanotech shifting and sliding sounded like music to Peter’s ears. ‘ _The ceiling’s about to cave, there isn’t enough power in my suit, we need to go—’_

‘The Goblin,’ Peter protested weakly, but he couldn’t get his mouth to work after that, his throat now hoarse and scratchy, probably drenched with blood too.

_The Goblin will live if we leave, he will live and he will plot and lie and manipulate until he has the whole world under his foot. We can’t let him get away._

Mr. Stark seemed to understand, the stony expression of his faceplate seeming absolutely torn and upset, but he never paused in his endeavour to retreat.

The Goblin towered over them, his menacing face bearing down on them as he grinned at them. His sharp teeth glittered like steel. ‘You fought well,’ he sneered at them, his talon-tipped hands wreathed in fire. ‘It is shame to see you die for a losing cause.’

Peter spat at him and snarled. His Spider-Sense unravelled frantically.

Growling, the Goblin raised his hand. The flames flickered across his skin like a massacre given form.

The Goblin struck—

—and then he choked.

Peter watched with wide eyes as the Goblin sunk to his knees, green blood dripping from the gaping hole in his chest. There was a large beam of metal sinking into the Goblin’s back.

Golden eyes widened with alarm as the ceiling screeched an ungodly sound, metal wrenching itself apart as the ceiling finally tumbled downward, all its supports having disappeared beneath the Goblin’s chaos.

He barely had time to defend himself when the ceiling came crashing down with a roar louder than all the thunder in the world, burying him in a mound of metal and glass and dirt and stone, flames shooting up to seal him in his casket.

There was a tugging at Peter’s arms, and he only barely registered Mr. Stark’s worried voice, now loud and high-pitched with worry. ‘ _—with me, stay with me! Peter Parker, if you nod off one more—oh, you’re awake. You’re awake! Quick, come on, kid, follow me, baby steps, let’s go, let’s go—’_

Mr. Stark hardly ever rambled like this. Must be something important.

Wait, the ceiling was collapsing? Right, that sounded important.

Peter’s body had gone numb, tingling around the edges and burning in the centre. He stumbled to his feet, leaning into cool metal of the Iron Man suit when he was suddenly yanked off his feet. Peter nearly yelped when he realised he was floating – the Iron Man suit was hopping with only one repulsor boot working, frantically leaping from debris to debris, slipping through hallways, following some invisible path while the world around them tumbled into chaos. Light and heat ripped through the facility, tearing down walls like a dragon with talons made of fire.

‘ _Hang on, kid,’_ Mr. Stark was saying over and over, his voice lost to the din of the collapsing infrastructure, but Peter heard him anyway. Peter always managed to hear things, didn’t he?

Well, he didn’t manage. It wasn’t like he could control his hearing…or his thoughts…he sounded so delirious, even in his own head.

Peter glanced at the rivers of red that gushed from his arms and legs, leaving a crimson trail that splattered on the ground, his bemusement finally melting into unquestionable silence. Yeah, blood loss seemed to constitute the confusion in his mind.

He blinked, trying to relax as much as he could in the grip of the Iron Man suit when Mr. Stark would yell at him to not fall asleep. But Peter could just barely follow instructions; he was so _tired,_ why couldn’t he just rest? Why couldn’t he gain energy to stop him?

_Stop him? Who? The Goblin? Norman Osborn? The one who just got buried? Him?_

The questions melded into silence as Peter vacantly watched the world burn around him. Colours and sounds mixed into some vibrant mess, both lulling and electrifying his senses. Heat pressed against his skin, until suddenly it was like he was flung into space – biting cold gnawing at his bones, pure darkness filling his vision, a blackness that stole his breath away.

Peter forgot how to breathe when Mr. Stark tumbled to the ground, Peter landing on top of him when a loud explosion rattled the air. The wave of heat knocked Peter back, his hand grazing something small and chipped and fragile – leaves, twigs. Was there another part of the facility that had plants growing in them.

He was shaken out of the fuzzy world in mind to Mr. Stark shaking him, his words no longer metallic from the faceplate and the helmet covering his head. His worried face, streaked with grime and blood, called for Peter to look at him. Peter did.

‘You good?’ asked Mr. Stark.

Peter shrugged. The world tilted sideways for a moment, the edges lined with black. Was he happy for getting out alive? Yes, definitely. Was he worried about the deliriousness and the blood loss? Also yes.

‘Can you— can you stand?’

Peter shrugged again. He could if he wanted to, but he was just so exhausted he couldn’t be bothered to try.

‘No, kid. Please, just stay awake a little longer. I called the paramedics, they’ll be here to get us and the other kids some help.’

Peter wanted to ask why Tony Stark of all people needed help from the paramedics when he glanced down and saw the man’s ankle; it was bent all weirdly, even within the suit. Peter guessed ankles weren’t supposed to be pointing in that direction.

Then his mind caught up for a moment, and Peter muttered intelligently, ‘‘R’ dh’ k’ds ‘kay?’

Mr. Stark blinked. ‘Say what?’

‘K’ds. _K’ds._ ‘R’ th’y alrigh’?’ Peter tried swallowing whatever was in his mouth, only disappointed to feel it dribble out of his mouth; how embarrassing. ‘B’bby ‘n’ ‘gel’ca. Th’y good?’

‘Oh. Fiery and Frosty? Uh, they’re okay. All the kids aren’t hurt that bad but…’ Mr. Stark trailed off to pat Peter’s face; he couldn’t feel a thing, the blackness of his vision humming now. Was that something to be worried about?

‘Kid, hang on,’ Mr. Stark said, the conviction in his voice wavering. ‘You hang on, alright?’

 _Hang on to what?_ Peter wanted to ask him, retreating into the blackness. The comfortable darkness that nested in his mind and slowly reached outward, drawing every aching and torn part of his back inside. Every blink felt arduous, the need to sleep getting stronger and stronger.

‘No, Pete, open your eyes, open your eyes— no, don’t close them— God, there’s so much blood— hey, hey! Frosty! Fiery!’ Mr. Stark suddenly shouted, turning Peter’s world briefly white before it settled into darkness. ‘Hey, you two, get over here! Please! Please, I—’

Peter fell into the deep, pressed firmly against Mr. Stark as he slept, his heart thrumming softly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I literally reread "The Goblin roared, his hands bursting into flames", and then the rain fell like it was poured out of buckets


	15. The One Who Took Off

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *cries from Danny Torrance's death from Doctor Sleep*

* * *

— _CHAPTER FIFTEEN_ —  
_THE ONE WHO TOOK OFF_

Tony was never usually one to panic in situations where his life was at stake. He was a superhero after all, to the public at least; it was part of the job to be worried over other people – teammates and civilians alike – more than one’s self.

So it was understandable that he let down those steel walls to let himself _feel_ that night, to understand the roiling emotions deep within his chest. He tried to unravel the tangled mess of feelings wound around his bones, tried to make sense of them.

All rationality vanished like smoke when Tony watched Peter fall limp against him, blood spurting from his mouth and down his chin, his eyes finally closing after a shuddering breath rattled through his chest.

It was like the world had ended. Only then did Tony panic.

 _Oh, God,_ his mind thought viciously, his guilt snapping at him. _You killed the kid. He’s dead. He is dead and it is all your fault._

 _No,_ Tony thought harshly, scrambling to retract the nanoparticles from his hands. The cold air nipped at his skin. _No, he’s not dead. Peter is a strong kid, he’ll pull through_. Refusing to let his mind spiral any further, Tony pressed his fingers against the side of Peter’s neck, the skin slick with gooey blood. He pushed his fingers against the vein, hoping, praying—

There it was. A pulse. Light but strong, nonetheless.

Tony wanted to laugh; he really would have laughed. All the crap they went through, and they still made it to the other side. Bleeding and broken and hurt and half-dead, sure, but here they were. Still breathing.

Holding Peter close to him, Tony’s head dropped to his chest, where the seams of the Mark L were smooth and cold, the humming of the arc reactor quiet in his ears. Tony whispered, ‘F.R.I.D.A.Y., call emergency services, preferably the ambulances. Send them the coordinates, alright?’

Her response was short and clipped, the words lost to the bitter wind swirling around them, but Tony didn’t need to hear the exact words to know F.R.I.D.A.Y. was already a step ahead.

Minutes passed in silence, and Tony looked up. He shifted his weight to find a suitable position for Peter, letting out a shuddering gasp as pain shot through his leg like a bullet. He glanced at his ankle, all mangled and twisted. Osborn – or the greedy goblin, as Peter had eloquently put it – had one hell of a grip. Tony just hoped said goblin was as good as dead in that hellhole.

The darkness of the forest pressed in on him, feeling constricting and tight, but Tony ignored it and called out, ‘Frosty! Fiery! Come on, I need a little help!’ There was silence, as if the world was holding its breath; no children came running up to him. He tried again: ‘Please. It’s Peter. It’s safe now, and Peter’s hurt.’

That elicited some reaction. Tony had landed by the boulders that held the biometric security system at the facility’s front doors, and he heard the sounds of scurrying feet right by him. He glanced up, breathing heavily, as a pair of children walked up to him, wary and alert: Frosty and Fiery. Their powers had faded, giving Tony a clearer picture of what they looked like now that they weren’t wreathed in their auras. They seemed to be of the same age, maybe twelve, both skinny but much healthier than Peter’s bone-thin figure. The Fiery had burning red hair and bright blue eyes, while Frosty’s brown hair dangled in front of his face, obscuring some of the freckles.

The two of them glanced at Peter, and their faces blanched. ‘Peter?’ gasped Fiery as she slid down the dirt, her bare feet snapping the twigs and crunching the leaves. Frosty was right behind her as she fell to her knees by Peter’s side, her hands pressed against her mouth.

 _B’bby ‘n’ ‘ngel’ca,_ Peter had told him before he passed out, his unfocused eyes wide with worry before they slid shut. ‘Are you Bobby and Angelica?’ asked Tony. When he received an affirmative nod from Fiery, he asked them, ‘You guys alright?’

Fiery – Angelica – shook her head.

Shuffling on his feet, Frosty – Bobby – spoke up for her. ‘We’re fine. But is Pete gonna…’

_Is he gonna make it?_

Tony’s leg felt numb as he tried to go for an indifferent shrug. ‘Hopefully,’ was all he could muster.

He later asked Angelica and Bobby if the other seven children were okay, to which they replied that they were hiding amongst the trees behind the boulders. While they talked, Tony set about trying to staunch Peter’s blood flow, trying to redirect the nanoparticles off his suit to cover the wounds and sealing them with Peter’s webbing. It was messy, but it was better than bleeding all over the forest floor where any number of things could infect blood and kill a person, superhuman or not, much faster.

All the while, he stroked Peter’s hair, curling the bloodied strands through his own grimy fingers. Peter’s skin was pale, sticky and hot to the touch, his face peaceful as he seemed to be at home in the darkness of his mind. Tony wished it didn’t have to be that way.

A half hour later, after gathering the kids together and after numerous head counts, Tony caught sight of lights flashing from the depths of the forest, casting an odd glow in the mist. Then the sound hit him like a wall of concrete: sirens.

All of their heads snapped towards the emergency vehicles as they approached, rumbling along the ground, their red and blue lights flashing furiously alongside the white glow of the headlights. Tony watched as the paramedics bumbled out, their voices carrying through the wind as they told each other what to do and how to treat the wounded.

Those next busy moments passed slowly for Tony when Angelica gripped his head, drawing his attention. He glanced at her. She looked so small in the light, pulled into Bobby’s protective figure as the paramedics reached them, medical bags jangling.

As she was pried away from Bobby, Angelica stared right into Tony’s eyes and said softly, ‘Peter is our friend. Please…let us know when he gets better, Mr. Stark.’

 _When he gets better_.

The kid had no other option _but_ to get better, and Tony wouldn’t want it any other way. The kid would make it.

(But the kid has lost so much blood, if a person loses six-tenths of their blood, or two litres of it, they pass out, their heart rate increases, their breathing is erratic, and then they—)

Peter would make it.

There wasn’t enough power, or nanoparticles, for Tony to fly back to New York. He was sure he wouldn’t be going anywhere with his ruined ankle, and the paramedics had insisted they put it in a splint before they could diagnose just how damaged his bones were; he could honestly care less.

The ambulances had arrived at the hospital resting on the outskirts of the nearest town, carefully guiding the children to emergency wards to treat them. Tony had done his best to relay what had happened to them: bombarded with radiation, had their DNA tampered with. The doctors had done their best to drain out the infected blood, and gave Tony the good news that there were no permanent side effects; their powers, or whatever they had, had already faded, seeing as their DNA mostly rejected the Formula and they would have needed continuous doses to have the radiation bond with them. The kids would be plagued by bouts of exhaustion for a while, and even that would clear up soon. They would be back to normal soon enough.

The doctors questioned about Peter, to which Tony replied, ‘He’s my intern. He’s under my care, and I need to get him back to New York.’ It took some convincing, and the promise of donations of advanced medical equipment and funding Tony was willing to provide, but eventually the doctors relented, releasing Tony and Peter to the care of New York doctors, specifically the ones working at the Compound.

Tony had been quick to contact Happy and get him to fly over in a Stark Jet, regardless of the many hours of waiting. During that time, after the doctors had fixed his ankle and wrapped it up in a cast, Tony sat by an unconscious Peter’s bed unable to sleep. An IV drip inserted into the kid’s arm to replenish his nutrition levels. His wounds had been cleaned and the slashes stitched up and bandaged, and Tony watched the deathly paleness of Peter’s skin fade quietly into a healthier flush.

In the early hours of Christmas morning, the Stark Jet had landed. With the help of the nurses, Tony and a still-sleeping Peter were guided onto the jet and strapped in.

From the jet’s cockpit, Happy gave them one glance before turning back around again. Tony thought he saw tears brimming the man’s dark eyes.

There were back at the Compound at midday. The building was a welcoming sight as Happy directed the jet onto the airstrip, pulling it to a gentle stop before helping Tony and Peter out of the jet. The kid was partially awake when they began moving, often muttering, ‘Th’ Gobl’n’s out, right? Old Gobby’s lost, right?’

‘Sure he is, kid,’ Tony told him, leaning heavily on the crutches the nurses had so graciously gifted him back in West Virginia. ‘He totally lost.’

Peter grinned at him as the doctors at the Compound took him with gentle hands, his smile lopsided. It was an endearing sight, one that stemmed from the relief of the kid actually being able to live to give him that smile.

A couple of hours later after receiving a general check-up, Tony sat outside the room Peter was stationed in at the medical wing. The doctors had said Peter would recover quickly, maybe within a week at the latest, which was remarkable, even for them. Peter was still asleep in the medical wing, exhaustion still running rampant across his body, and Tony figured the least he could do was just watch over him until he woke up.

(The kid would wake up).

‘Ah, there you are.’

Tony blinked viciously to stave off the dryness in his eyes as he turned up to look at Rhodey, a soft smile on his lips. Rhodey’s leg braces were whirring slightly as he walked over towards Tony and sank into the seat next to him. He glanced down at Tony’s ankle, wrapped up tightly.

‘Don’t know why I looked in the labs for you,’ Rhodey piped up after a moment.

‘It was a pretty good guess,’ Tony admitted. ‘Was it a relief for you to see I wasn’t drowning in coffee this morning?’

‘You weren’t here this morning.’

‘Ah. Right.’

Rhodey shifted slightly in his seat. ‘You know,’ he said slowly, ‘this kind of reminds of when I had the MRI scan.’

Tony looked at him. ‘How so?’

Rhodey gave him a deadpan look. ‘Tones, I know you were standing outside the window in the room. I didn’t have to _look_ to know you were there.’ He tilted his head towards the room Peter was resting in. ‘And I think the kid doesn’t need to see you to know you’re here watching him.’

‘You make it sound as if I’m trespassing,’ Tony said quietly.

‘But you’re not.’

Sighing, Tony relaxed into his chair, his muscles pulling weirdly as he tried to shrink in on himself. ‘It…kind of is, in a way, actually. I’m interfering with his life. I pulled him into something he clearly was not ready for, I pulled him away from any chance of a normal life. And this…’ He gestured vaguely to the room. ‘…this is what he has to pay. For my mistakes. And I’m just sitting here pitying myself and for him when I essentially have no right to.’

May’s words from all those weeks ago slithered into his mind like a treacherous snake. She had apologised for it, but the acidic feeling her words carried had not gone away entirely. They still lingered and burned, because Tony knew it was true; he had affected the events that had happened this past month, he was a catalyst for the horrors that had unfolded.

Rhodey was silent as he processed Tony’s words. When he looked up again, Tony could see the stubborn and protective glint in his friend’s eyes. ‘You believe what you want to believe,’ Rhodey told him quietly, ‘but I certainly don’t think you’ve ruined this kid’s life. I think you’ve helped him through it. Whether you want to believe it or not, but that kid’s life started the moment he was bitten by that bug. He was the one who took off with a ratty sweater and his web-slinging thingies. You just…showed him the ropes that came with superhero-ing. You helped him when he needed it.’

Rhodey clasped his hand firmly around Tony’s, trying to grab his full attention. He did. ‘Tony, you’ve done more good than harm for this kid. I’m sure Peter would say the same.’

 _He definitely would,_ Tony thought. _He's too humble for his own good._

Seeming satisfied to have rendered Tony Stark silent, Rhodey patted his friend on the shoulder to get up and leave, letting Tony stew in the quiet that had appeared the moment the sounds of Rhodey’s leg braces had vanished into thin air.

The doctors had told Tony to take a break, that sitting there doused in worry and stress wouldn’t help him heal as fast. Besides, it was Christmas, he deserved to be happy for a little while. The only place Tony could somewhat let his emotions run free, could let his body take over as his mind retreated was the labs, where he fiddled and tinkered and planned and constructed. Here, everything was how it should be: organised and messy, but ready to serve a purpose.

Tony had been halfway through developing the schematics for a new suit when he heard the doors to the lab quietly swing open. The footsteps that echoed in the lab weren’t clipped and dainty like Pepper’s, or stiff and robotic like Rhodey’s, or even light and quick like Peter’s.

Instead, he found himself facing May, looking brighter than she had all month. She was wearing a thick woollen scarf, coloured red and green and patterned with reindeer and snowflakes, despite the warmth of the Compound. She wasn’t wearing her glasses, and she sat in a chair a few feet from the workbench Tony was stationed at.

‘Hello,’ she greeted, a twinkle in her eyes.

‘Hey,’ Tony replied, setting down his stylus and twisting in his seat so his body could face May.

‘How are you?’ asked May, fiddling with the edge of her scarf.

Tony shrugged indifferently. ‘I’ve had better days, but I’m doing alright.’ He paused. ‘How’s Peter? I haven’t checked on him for a few hours.’

‘The doctors said he was healing up nicely, so that’s…really nice,’ May finished awkwardly, smiling at her failed attempt to finish the sentence properly. Tony couldn’t really blame her; relief could easily overwhelm anybody.

‘I’m sorry he had to go through that,’ Tony suddenly said. His subconscious need to sour the mood surprised even him. ‘He’s just a kid, and he really shouldn’t have to…experience as horrible as that. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to stop him when I could have.’

Empathy lingered in May’s eyes as she leaned forward slightly. ‘It’s okay,’ she told him. ‘I forgive you. I mean, how could I not?’ Tony raised an eyebrow at her, and she continued: ‘You promised you would bring him back safely. And you did. Well, despite him…bleeding all over the pavement. But you brought him back.’

She looked at him in the eyes, and she reminded Tony of Angelica, thankful and relieved and happy. ‘I cannot thank you enough for saving Peter,’ she said, her voice strong and steady. ‘I cannot thank you enough for being a good person that Peter needed.’

Tony stiffened. He blinked, and slowly said, ‘What?’

‘I said, you’re a good person, Tony Stark,’ May said, smiling again. ‘I don’t mean to brag, but Peter has a habit of finding good people out there; I’m just glad he found you to look up to when he needed it.’

And Tony had turned away from May, picking up his stylus and flipping it between his fingers to hide the smile that stretched across his face.

* * *

_Peter was wandering the halls of the Compound. It was still quiet and dark, frost creeping up its walls. The fog still lingered, coating the floor like a thick white blanket that vanished wherever Peter stepped. His footsteps were loud as he traversed the Compound, alone._

_Alone. The word felt like acid in Peter’s gut, like ice on his skin. It set his Spider-Sense on edge as it tried to locate something, anything, because Peter knew he wasn’t alone, not truly._

_But was he?_

_God, where_ was _everyone?_

_‘Hello?’ Peter called into the depths of the corridors, into the darkness of the rooms. ‘Hello? Is anyone there? Please answer me.’_

_Only silence answered Peter’s questions. It gnawed at him, trailed icy fingers down his back, but its claustrophobic nature didn’t seem as intense as it used to be. It seemed…tame. Held back, somehow. Whatever it was, Peter was glad for it. He didn’t think he could handle being crushed under the weight of it._

_Peter made his way to the lab. He tried flicking the lights on but wasn’t surprised to see the place still wreathed in darkness. Huffing, Peter turned back and headed for the lounge and the kitchen, the windows revealing the darkness of the world outside. Rust had again conquered most of the kitchen, while large shards of ice grew from the floor, making it impossible to traverse it. Books and mugs sat on the coffee table, cracked and broken and edged with frost._

_But the most peculiar thing Peter had seen during his time in the dilapidated Compound was the holoscreen flickering above the table, the words melting and flashing in gibberish._

_Someone was here._

_Heartrate picking up, Peter quickly glanced about. ‘Hello?’ he yelled again. The air grew colder, heavier. ‘Hey, is someone here? You have to be, I— I can’t be alone. Please.’_

_He saw a shadow flicker down the hallway._

_‘Mr. Stark?’ Peter said softly. ‘Is that you?’_

_The shadow paused. It twitched, as if turning its head._

_‘Tony?’_

_It was Norman Osborn._

_Peter felt slightly breathless at the sight of him. He looked_ horrible _. His skin was scaly and burnt, chunks of flesh missing, but it wasn’t tinged green like when Osborn had been the Goblin. There were odd cartilage formations along his shoulders, and his fingers were taloned. The hole in chest was still there, free of blood but as dark as midnight._

_Osborn grinned at him, his teeth sharp and serrated and pearly white, his eyes glowing a horrible shade of crimson. He opened his mouth to say something, but it only came out as a whisper, too quiet for Peter to hear anything. He pulled out a syringe and inserted it into his arm. There was no choking like before, there was no mania like before._

_There was only Peter, the decaying Compound, and Osborn who burst into flames._

_Blood-red fire washed over everything, melting the frost and clawing at the rust and burning through the fog, screaming at Peter,_ You cannot run, you cannot run, stay with us, you deserve it _._

 _Peter cried out as he stumbled back, fear stabbing through his heart as he avoided the tongues fire that tried to lick at his clothes, his hands and feet. He backed into the corner, mildly perplexed as it was not heat that assaulted his skin but otherworldly_ coldness _, the freezing chills of space that burned him._

_The icy-cold hatred of the past haunting him, its screams telling him that he couldn’t protect, he couldn’t save, he couldn’t be courageous to admit he was weak._

_Peter curled in on himself, trying to make himself a smaller target to the unrelenting flames, to shy away from its shrieks of pain and fury when suddenly they backed away._

_Peter peeked out from beneath his arms, watching as the fire was held back by some invisible force, no longer powered by the fear in his heart and the isolation that lingered in the Compound and the screams of the people – of the children he couldn’t save._

_Because someone was here._

_They were really here._

_Tentatively, Peter unfurled himself. The flames keened, their sparks flickering outwards in waves; they didn’t seem so scary anymore. Peter stood up, now aware that there clearly was someone here, watching over him, beside him, caressing him with a gentle hand that was outstretched, a light in the darkness that surrounded him. It beckoned him forward._

You need to wake up now _, it seemed to say._

_Peter stretched out his own hand to grasp it._

And he woke to light.

Peter groaned, turning his head away from the sharp light overhead, the backs of his eyes stinging from the abrupt change of darkness to light. He felt cold, not the cold of outer space biting into him, but more of the cold that came with a gentle breeze.

He was in a bed, its surface cool against his skin, somewhat uncomfortable but just barely. He felt something in his arm, shifting against his skin as he moved. The thing piqued Peter’s awareness, his Spider-Sense curling gently around it as if it weren’t aware of it itself. But Peter could feel it, it was there, embedded into his skin, his flesh.

Peeking through his tightly-shut eyelids, he saw a figure with glassed bending over him, a smile on his face.

‘Hey, there, Parker,’ said the man.

 _Octavius_.

The name his mind supplied snapped Peter out of his reverie, and a guttural sound made from pure terror escaped his lips. He shot upright, the world blending in colours as he tried to get away, clawing at something that just escaped his reach. This wasn’t a part of his plan, he was supposed to have escaped, he was supposed to have left Octavius and the Goblin behind. He was supposed to have left, with the children, with Bobby and Angelica, with Mr. Stark and—

Wait, where was Mr. Stark? Did they have him too? Did they get him? Oh _no_ this wasn’t supposed to happen this wasn’t supposed to happen—

‘—ete, look at me! Hey, calm down—’

Octavius had him again, he had the Oz Formula and he was shoving it down Peter’s veins, he was using Peter because the Goblin demanded so, because he wanted an army, he wanted super-powered soldiers, he wanted the world beneath his feet—

‘Peter! Look at me, kid! I, uh— listen! _Listen!’_

Peter paused, some basic, childish instinct begging him to follow the voice’s command and to _listen._

He heard the quiet, the simple whispers of machinery as they worked. He heard the _drip drip drip_ of something right by his ear – a quick look showed him that it was an IV drip, its liquid contents falling down a tube inserted into his skin. He heard the crinkling of bed sheets as he moved his legs. He heard the absence of metallic platings shifting and sliding, heard the absence of the metal harness and the robotic arms that had almost always grappled with him, slicing his skin and scarring him over and over.

He heard the familiar hum of the arc reactor by his head.

Finally, Peter looked up. The face of Tony Stark, his glasses askew, gazed back at him.

‘You here, kid?’ asked Mr. Stark, concern flashing through his eyes.

Mr. Stark, with his dishevelled hair and his goatee and arc reactor humming away and his stupid sense of humour that might sound sarcastic and hurtful even though he actually truly cared. Mr. Stark was here, he really was here.

‘Oh my God,’ sighed Peter, relaxing under the sheets. ‘Oh my God. Mr. Stark, you’re really…really…’

_Not hurt. Safe. Alive. Here._

Mr. Stark gripped Peter’s hand, the guide that had brought him out of the darkness of his dream. ‘Right here, kid,’ Mr. Stark agreed.

‘That was…scary.’

‘Yeah, it was.’

Peter bit his lip before he asked, ‘Is Osborn still after me?’

‘Oh, no, he’s very dead,’ Mr. Stark said, pulling up a chair and sitting in it. ‘Remember? You were pretty out of it when I got you out. He got buried in his own facility. It’s almost a full-circle thing, ending up in the place where he thought he could change the world.’

Peter nodded slowly as he remembered the fire and the rubble and the beastly growls of the Goblin. He slipped his hand out of Mr. Stark’s, his fingers suddenly clammy. ‘I wonder how I even looked up to a guy like Osborn; he was all sorts of shady, even from the beginning.’

‘Well, I did warn you,’ Mr. Stark said amiably.

‘That was scary,’ Peter said again, this time letting the emotions in his chest rattle out of him like marbles spilling out of a bucket. ‘That was…so, so scary.’ He looked down at his chest, relieved to see he wasn’t wearing the green clothes that he had been dressed in. ‘I didn’t think it was going to get this bad.’

‘Me neither,’ admitted Mr. Stark. He sighed, slipping off his glass and tucking them into his pocket as he turned to Peter. His eyes swirled with a torrent of emotions, so many that Peter could barely figure out one. ‘But…you beat it. You beat it and now you’re _safe._ God, I was so _worried_ about you. I _missed_ you and your ramblings and your references and…just.’ He sniffed violently, looking down, as he said, tone suddenly dry, ‘Your presence was greatly missed. It brings me great joy to have you return.’

Peter cracked a smile, his heart buzzed like a hummingbird, quick and earnestly. The corners of his eyes prickled. ‘I missed you, too, Mr. Stark.’ he said slowly; his face flushed a little, but he couldn’t be bothered to hide his face. ‘Being alone _sucked.’_

‘We’re never going through this rodeo ever again.’

‘I definitely don’t want a repeat of this, either.’

They sat in silence for a moment, comfortable in each other’s presence. ‘I heard you staged that break out,’ Mr. Stark piped up. ‘That’s pretty impressive, seeing as you literally ended up destroying the whole place.’ Mr. Stark fiddled with his fingers, bringing one hand up to rub it against the edges of the arc reactor.

Peter questioned, ‘What happened to the kids? Are they alright?’

‘Oh, good news.’ Straightening, Tony told him, ‘The kids will all make full recoveries. Since the drugs had unlocked dormant powers, the catch is that if it isn’t administered constantly, the effects of the drug wear off. No one had powers when they were admitted to hospital; no one had any radiation poisoning. Uh, how long were the kids there, actually?’

‘I don’t know,’ Peter admitted, hackles rising again, as he looked down at his hands. They looked clean and soft, definitely not how they would have looked hours earlier. ‘I was alone for most of the time. There, uh, there was a girl I met when I first woke up. Her name was Katherine.’

Peter didn’t elaborate. He _couldn’t_ elaborate.

Mr. Stark gave him a sad look, cementing the suspicions that shifted around in Peter’s mind. ‘I found Katherine,’ Mr. Stark said slowly, as if he was afraid Peter would snap. ‘I, uh…yeah. I found her.’

‘You didn’t find any other kids after that, right?’

‘No, no I didn’t.’ Peter laid against the bed, squinting up at the light overhead when he realised something.

‘Oh, did you say that drug’s effects wear off after sometime?’ Peter asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Oh, that’s _good_.’ Upon Mr. Stark’s confused glance, Peter said, ‘Octavius – he was a guy who worked there – said that the Formula _did_ manage to alter my DNA to some extent. I lost my ability to thermoregulate. Do you think I’ve gotten it back?’

Mr. Stark shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Are you feeling cold? The medical wing is at 84 degrees Fahrenheit.’

Peter shook his head, and finally there was a grin on his face. ‘Wow, I’m actually _better_ now, Mr. Stark?’

‘No,’ Mr. Stark said immediately, gaze turning unhappy. ‘You are going to stay here at the Compound for the next month. I don’t care if you miss out on school, you’re going to make up for the time you spent being locked up in a lab against your will. You’re actually going to enjoy this Christmas, and we’ll be spending every minute with you, whether you like it or not.’

Peter smiled. ‘Yeah, I’d actually like that. Um, do I still get presents?’

Shrugging, Mr. Stark said, ‘Eh, we’ll figure something out.’

As Peter faked a gasp of shock, Mr. Stark turned to him, the light in his eyes having relit. ‘Oh, that reminds me. Remember that message you sent me? The one through Twitter – great job hacking my account, now I’ll have to change the password – yeah, apparently, it’s taken the world by storm. They want to know why Stark Industries is selling mutant puppies on Christmas Eve.’

Peter snickered.

‘Pete, we got to give them something. You got to figure out how to get out of this one.’

Peter giggled. Then he laughed.

God, it had been so _long_ since he had laughed like this. Laughed right from the bottom of his heart, deep inside his core, he wondered when he’d let this much joy tumble out of him. He couldn’t remember, but he figured it was okay. He was laughing now, it would be a shame to stop so soon.

And he wasn’t the only one laughing. Mr. Stark was here too, chuckling his heart out, his hand reaching to grab Peter’s again, as if he wanted to share the joy with him. It was a nice feeling, a clear, lighter feeling that overpowered the murky darkness that they had both trudged through. A reward earned after a long trial of hardships and pain and terror and fear.

Peter hadn’t felt this light in what seemed like years.

He was just glad he was experiencing it with someone he enjoyed being with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my parents said i have to engage in this thing called "sleep", so now you have to wait until tomorrow so i can release the post credits scene


	16. ######## ####

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Points if you manage to find the chapter's name

* * *

— _CHAPTER #######_ —  
_######## ####_

He awoke to ash in his mouth.

It was like fire was burning along his body, the corporeal fingers digging deep into his flesh and inciting sharp bursts of pain in his skin, his muscles, his bones.

Everything was too much. Everything was blurry.

He could hear everything. He could hear nothing.

There was so much input, but he could hardly process any of it.

Coughing, he tried reaching out. His fingers landed on stone and jagged metal, the rough edges slicing through his fingers. He couldn’t feel the cut against the ocean of pain he was drowning in.

He stretched out his limbs, his awareness, tried to get some part of him to grab a hold of anything.

Of _anything_.

And then, he felt it – beneath his arm, cold and metallic, he gripped the stone, miraculously not splitting it in two.

He reached out with the other, his other arm, and grabbed the debris that hung just above him.

Slowly, surely, he began to climb. Out of the rubble, out of the mountain he was trapped in.

Dimly, he wondered, _How did I get here?_

He wondered, _What happened?_

The memories were unfocused, fuzzy. The images were mere colours. But there were sounds, clear as day.

He could hear a voice, the clanking of metal as it zipped through the air. He had worked so long with the voice, maybe a month.

The voice used to be timid, quiet, fearful despite its brave exterior.

And then the voice began to taunt.

Slowly, he realised, he remembered, that the voice had a name.

_Sorry, Doc. I’ve postponed my appointment._

The voice was called _Peter Parker._

He gritted his teeth; the taste of metal, liquid and hot, flooded his mouth. The boy _Parker_ did this to him. He trapped him beneath this mountain of rubble.

With renewed vigour, the burning hatred for a young upstart like Parker ignited his mind, and he clawed faster upward.

Tense seconds grew into terse minutes until finally, he saw light.

He burst through the tiny opening, his arms propelling him forward, his arms digging him out.

His arms saving him.

In the dim light of the dying crimson fires, Otto Octavius blinked as he glanced down at his bloodied arms and legs. Drops of red splattered to the ground. They twitched without thought. They hung limp when he commanded them to move.

The only thing that responded were the metallic arms sprouting from his back, their telescopic joints clanking and clicking.

Otto watched them, mesmerised, as they moved him from the wreckage without so much as a thought, as if they had a mind of their own.

 _I’m alive,_ Otto tried to say; his mouth only let out tired rasps.

His arms seemed to agree, despite lacking audio receptors. They seemed joyful of his survival.

 _But how?_ Otto asked.

The arms shivered, as if they wanted to say something but couldn’t, when their claws suddenly snapped open, their tips sharpened and ready for defence. The rush of adrenaline in his veins was overwhelming.

Otto’s mind felt slow. Parker had returned?

‘Steady,’ hummed a voice. ‘Steady.’ The crunch of metal rang through the air, accompanying the crackling of the fires. ‘You know me, don’t you?’

Otto looked up. Details never reached his eyes; the absence of his glasses were the answer to the problem. He could make a figure, a man, a tall one. Dark green liquid dribbled down his front. The voice of the man was low and deep.

 _You seem familiar,_ Otto thought. In response, his arms clicked and whirred, their defensive claws retracting and folding backwards to help steady Otto on his numb legs.

‘Yes, you _do_ remember me,’ the voice said; he sounded relieved. Or maybe Otto had imagined it. The man had nothing to fear.

Otto cocked his head, blinking furiously, trying to guide tears from his eyes into clearing away the dust and gunk that had gathered there.

‘How are you feeling, Otto?’

 _Not as well as you, I’m afraid._ The arms creaked in disdain.

‘Hmm, not as well. Not to worry, we’ll have ourselves all patched up soon enough,’ said the voice, leaning forward.

Images became slightly clearer now. Otto’s eyes adjusted, his blasted near-sightedness finally focusing on the face that loomed in front of him. It was streaked with blood and grime and littered with cuts, but its carefree smile was as bright as the sun.

‘We have a job to do, dear Otto,’ said Norman Osborn, his grin sharp and wide. ‘There is a spider crawling free.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: *this chapter*  
> Everyone: My disappointment is immeasurable, and my day is ruined


	17. End, Plus Fun Facts

* * *

— _END_ —  
 _PLUS, FUN FACTS_

To answer your questions on that cliffhanger last chapter...

...there are no answers. I honestly have no clue if I'm going to continue this story, so I'll leave it up to you to decide the epic showdown that would probably come. Hell, apparently _Spider-Man 3_ has BOTH the Green Goblin and Doctor Octopus in the story, somewhere in the third act, so take this as a not-canon origin for the two of them or something :P

Writing this story has been an absolute blast! I think this is our fastest-written story ever? It spanned just over two weeks, I'm pretty sure. Darn, that's a bit crazy? Sure, we encountered some things on the way, like losing everything related to this story when it first started out, but nevertheless here we are! At the End!

Wooo! Round of applause to everyone who followed this journey right up to this last entry!!

And now, for some fun facts! I know, I mentioned this back in Chapter 1, but this entire story is based on the dreams I've had in the past few weeks. Of course, it was borderline nonsense while I was dreaming, and so it made sense to dramatise it ,add a few buckets of blood here and there, smother all of you with my love for science, and slap the good old Irondad content onto it. It made sense. I think.

(Sorry for traumatising you, by the way).

Anyway, here are some of the dreams that have influenced or have made some sort of appearance in this story:

  * **Children getting their limbs chopped off**. Obviously, the version I dreamt off was significantly less bloody. In my dream, my classmates and I were strolling about a shopping mall, and a woman, Monica Rappacinni, walked up to everyone and karate-chopped our limbs off. She then stole our limbs and ran away.
  * **The zombiepocalypse**. Okay, yes, there were no zombies like in _The Last of Us_. But the blood poisoning/infection? The line Octavius spits out: " _should the poisoning spread to the cerebellum, then loss of cognitive and motor functions can occur_ "? Tandy (Dagger) who seemed to be brain-dead? Yeah, kind of sounds like a zombie to me.
  * **Hike through the wilderness**. No one hiked and got hit by an Australian Metro train, unfortunately, but who knew Osborn's secret lair was actually in some foresty area? Legit, please tell me if you knew we were going to be digging into the countryside or something.
  * **I want all your blood**. This dream was one of those dreams where it was like everything played on the big screen; I think I was watching a hypothetical Spider-Man 3. Some evil scientist had kidnapped Peter, and was trying to strike a deal with him to gain his blood for evil scientist purposes.
  * **Ouch, I think something stabbed me**. Please don't laugh. It was a point-of-view dream. I was Spider-Man. I (Peter?) was battling Kraven the Hunter in the streets, trying to draw him away from my classmates when he fired a tranquiliser dart at my back. Somehow, as the dream progressed and I grew sloppy, I managed to break all known laws of physics.
  * **I saw Spider-Man venting**. In continuation of the previous dream, I, as Spider-Man, basically crawled through the vents. That's it.
  * **The Fear™ is here**. My first sleep paralysis taught me how painful it is when you are scared for your life; my heart was pounded by an anvil every time it beat and I just about lost my mind when I heard my brother snoring.



So. Those were the dreams and factors that had the most influence on the story. Why can't I have creativity when I'm awake? I could legit become a New York Times bestseller or something, lol XDD

However, these dreams weren't the only things that influenced me, though. There were heaps of references throughout the story referring to the Marvel Comics and the greater MCU world, such as the nurse Amara, the Ultimate Green Goblin, and Project OO being derived from the spider that bit Peter. There are also Easter Eggs, and even if you don't care about them, I'm just going to name some of them to save you the time (but they aren't in order, so it'll be up to you find out _where_ I placed them in the story):

  * **Doctor Strange**
  * **Cloak and Dagger**
  * **Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.**
  * **The numbers...aren't random**



This was a fun ride, and I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did. This makes two completed stories under my belt, which is a decent achievement, I think. Now, I'll be getting back to my other fics. Feel free to read them! Ciao, fellas, see you around!

~DemigodOfAgni


	18. Hey, Will You Look At That?

* * *

— _HEY_ —  
 _WILL YOU LOOK AT THAT?_

So I recently entered this book in **[ASupremeOverlord](https://www.wattpad.com/user/ASupremeOverlord)** 's book-cover contest on Wattpad, and I ended up winning?? Wow?! And the prize was getting new book covers created by Ryan!

So, that was great, absolutely mind-boggling, I let my mind melt like a fusion reactor for a bit from the initial freak-out. (But still very very great!! Thanks a lot, Ryan!!!)

I decided to post the new covers here, as well as the original cover above! Hope y'all have enjoyed this story as much as I have! Be sure to check out ASupremeOverlord's stories, they are a BLAST and totally amazing. Ciao, fellas!

~DemigodOfAgni


End file.
